Behind Enemy Lines
by allyg1990
Summary: He had been abandoned twice by the age of ten: first as a child, on the streets of New Orleans. The second time around it was her who abandoned him, but by the time he had found his friend, she had joined the enemy. ROMY.
1. Chapter 1: Runaway

_New Orleans_

"Remy?" The little girl's voice wavered, her fingers tightening around her friend's hand. "Can we go home now? It's gettin' dark now, and ah'm—"

"Scared?" He scoffed. "Don' be such a baby, Anna. Not'in's gonna hurt y', it's jus' de woods."

She scowled, straightening up and releasing her hold on his hand. "Ah ain't scared. Ah was just gonna say that Mama told meh to be home before dark, and she's gonna be mad if ah don't go back soon."

He smirked. "So y' scared of y' mama now?" She tried to kick him, but he jumped out of the way.

"Just 'cause yah're a spineless lil' thief doesn' mean ah am!" She yelled hotly, her striped woolen hat slipping down as her eyebrows knitted together. Remy rolled his eyes.

"Jus' 'cause 'm a t'ief doesn' mean 'm spineless. Tante Mattie makes sure 'o dat." He grumbled. Anna snickered.

"_Now_ who's scared?"

Remy looked away, crossing his arms in defiance as he scuffed his shoe in the dirt. "Not _moi_." Then, "C'mon, Anna, can't we jus' play a little longer?" He tried a pout, looking down at her with such a pleading look in his unusual eyes that she couldn't resist. She sighed, shifting her weight to one foot and letting her hands fall to her sides.

"Ah guess so…" Remy let out a whoop of joy, slapping her hard on the arm.

"Tag! You're it!" He yelled, sprinting into the undergrowth. Anna ran after him furiously, rubbing her sore arm.

"Remy Etienne LeBeau! You get back here, ya stinkin' little chea—" Before she could finish her sentence, her foot caught on a fallen branch, sending her sprawling onto the floor. She bit her lip to keep from crying out, but Remy still heard the thud as she crashed onto the forest floor.

"Anna?" He asked anxiously, running back to her side, "Are y' okay?" She smiled weakly as he dragged her into a sitting position, her hands clenched tightly.

"Ah'm okay… it's just a scratch." He frowned, prying a hand open. They winced simultaneously—the skin on her palms was torn up as streaked with dirt. Gingerly, he wiped the cuts with a clean section of his shirt while she hissed in pain.

By the time her cuts were clean, night had settled on the forest, leaving them blanketed in darkness. Anna shifted on the ground—she could barely see a few inches in front of her. Remy was a dark blur that she couldn't quite pick out, except for the soft red glow of his unusual eyes.

"Ah can see you…" she stage whispered, picturing his answering grin.

"I can see y' too." He whispered back, but a sharp crack startled them both. Anna curled her fingers into Remy's coat, wiggling closer to him. "What was that?"

Leaves and twigs cracked; the dim glow of a lantern approached them through the forest. They held their breaths; who was it, and what were they doing in the forest at night?

"Well, look what we got here," drawled a voice, its owner stepping out of the brush to reveal himself as a burly man in his mid thirties. "Two little kiddiewinks in the forest all alone." Remy swallowed, keeping his eyes down to the forest floor. This was the reason Tante Mattie didn't like him being out after dark—red on black eyes were strange enough, but even that could be attributed to genes gone awry. Glow in the dark eyes, on the other hand, were slightly harder to explain.

"We were jus' leavin'…" he mumbled, getting to his feet and tugging his friend to hers. "C'mon, Anna, we gotta go home."

"Not so fast." The man cautioned slyly, grabbing Anna's sleeve and yanking her down to the ground. She whimpered, trying to wriggle out of his hold. "Maybe I should give you a hand…"

At that Remy turned around, furiously yanking Anna's arm out of the man's grip. "We don' need y' help, _monsieur_." He countered rudely, narrowing his glowing eyes. "An' if y'll excuse us, we need t' get home."

The man stifled a gasp, taking a single step backwards before leaning forward to grab Remy's shirt and pull his face closer. "Devil." He whispered, roughly slamming the boy against a tree. Red on black eyes rolled back in his head as he sank to his knees and dropped to the ground. Anna screamed, running to her friend. "Remy," she sobbed. "Rems, wake up, wake _up_!"

"Get away from him." The man spat. "He's possessed by the devil." Anna spun to face him, miniature features twisted in anger.

"He ain't possessed! He's mah friend!" The assailant grabbed her arm again, and this time Remy wasn't around to rescue her.

"Maybe you're possessed too." He murmured, twisting her arm painfully behind her back. She winced, kicking and twisting to try and get away. He was coming closer; too close. She could feel his breath on her face and it was rancid and hot and she didn't like it and—

One small, white hand shot up to push his face away from hers, and when skin touched skin, something terrible started to happen.

It began with a sinking sensation in her gut and the flashing of a bright light, and thoughts started tumbling into her skull faster than she could hear them all.

_what's happening to me—pretty girl—devil spawn—his eyes are glowing!—maybe I got lucky—two little kiddiewinks alone in the forest—something's moving up ahead—moving—moving—moving—moving…._

Her head throbbed; she was so mixed up. Alien and personal thoughts swirled together under she couldn't tell them apart; memories flashed through her mind; a life played out before her eyes. It kept getting worse and worse and she knew that she had to—

Let go.

She pulled her fingers away as hard as she could, and it was like wrenching them out of half molten toffee. Her legs shook; she staggered backward, her victim crumpling to the ground in a disarrayed heap.

What had she done?

An unfamiliar voice screamed at her, though her physical ears heard nothing. The stillness of the dark was only interrupted by her quiet moans as she clutched her head, bare knees digging into the muddy ground.

"Ah'm sorry…Ah didn't mean to!" Her pleas meant nothing to the voice in her head, and it wouldn't be silenced.

Not until a warm hand weighed down her shoulder.

"Anna?" She twisted and slapped the hand away before she realized who it was.

"Remy?" He swayed on the spot, a thin trickle of blood staining his temple.

"Was' wron'?" He slurred. "Y' don' look so good." Anna swallowed as her friend took one, and then two steps towards her, cautiously backing away from him.

"Yah don' look so good either." She tried, and he frowned, peering at her face.

"What happened? Why are y' cryin'? What did y' do to the _fou homme_?" He asked, gesturing to the body splayed across the leaf littered earth. She lifted a hand to her cheeks, oddly surprised to find that they were moist.

"Ah—ah don' know." He was sober now as he stepped forward to pull her into a hug, to comfort her. Her shriek was deafening. "Don' come closer, Remy. Don' touch meh." He paused, confused by her reaction.

"Anna?"

"Please." She whispered. "He did. Somethin' happened to him. Ah don't want tah hurt yah." Remy snorted.

"Like y' could hurt _me_." He scoffed, lunging for her wrist. She snatched it away from him, and he tumbled, falling forward. In the brief moment before he met the ground, his fingers brushed the strip of bare skin between her jeans and her sock, and again, the bright light flashed and the voice rushed and roared and tumbled into her, and when she could see clearly again, he too lay sprawled on the floor, unconsciously staring eyes red and accusing.

She ran.

One thought circled her skull, weaving through the ones she knew did not belong to her, playing over and over again on a loop at the front of her mind.

_She had just killed her best friend.ff_

Anna was a murderer.

As her feet pounded against the ground, the screams shifted from a meaningless blur into comprehensible sounds, voices, two of them. One was the man, and he screamed and moaned and prowled the sides of his enclosure, desperately trying to find a way out. The second was a voice that she'd known for nearly all of the seven years that she'd been alive, and the words it spoke cut deeper than any that the man could ever have thrown at her.

_Anna._ It whispered, soaked in betrayal. _Anna, what have y' done?_

The next minutes passed in a blur; she would never really remember what happened when she looked back on it. Not that she did it often; it was too painful.

She sprinted her way up her own driveway, throwing the door open. "Mama!" she sobbed frantically, her mother dropping her paring knife and turning to her child. "Ah was playin' with Remy in the forest an' a man came an' he grabbed meh and then somethin' happened an' then Remy touched meh too an'…"

"Anna! Slow down, sweetheart, ah can't understand it when ya talk all fast." She scolded, her voice laced with concern as she bent down, put her hands on Anna's shoulders. The girl shoved her hands away, retreating towards the door.

"Don't touch meh, Mama." She pleaded. "That man did an' Remy did an' they died!" The older woman sucked in a breath, getting to her feet.

"What are you talkin' about, Anna?" She asked, paling under her light tan. "What happened tah Remy?" Anna took another halting breath, fresh tears sliding out of the corners of her eyes.

"Remy's dead, Mama. He touched mah skin and he died." Her mother's eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Don't be foolin' with meh, Anna. Why would anythin' happen if he touched you? Ah bet he's just hidin' in the bushes somewhere an' this is another one of your silly games."

"Mama!" Her cries fell on deaf ears, and when she tried to snatch at her mother's skirts to drag her out the door, the woman snatched her wrist in mid-air.

Anna watched in horror as her mother's face lost its color, skin becoming papery and dry. This was all a terrible dream, she knew it was, and any moment she would wake up, and the woman she was sucking the life out of would be cradling her in her arms, stroking her hair and crooning her, soothing her fear.

But it wasn't a dream. It hurt too much—her feet and her grazed hand and—her heart—her heart was breaking.

When she finally pushed her victim away, all that was left was a lifeless husk, eyes wide and staring in death.

She stared, and when she could no longer take it, she bolted out of the door.

Days could have passed when she finally arrived at the bus stop, drenched from the sudden downpour that had dropped from the heavens, giving her the impression that even God was shunning her.

Years might have floated past by the time the stranger touched her shoulder, jarring her out of her distressed half-asleep state. She flinched away from the hand, eyes snapping open, taking in the odd woman standing before her.

"Don't touch meh." She warned, muscles tensed to spring and run, but wordlessly, the woman, wearing sunglasses despite the darkness and brandishing a white cane, pressed a wad of material into her hands. Anna's stomach turned when she saw what she had been given.

It was a pair of black silk gloves.

"How…" she trembled. "How did yah know?"

The woman smiled, hand reaching up to the sunglasses and pulling them off. The child before her bit her lip, unable to tear her own eyes from the woman's. They were covered in a milk-white haze, motionless and unseeing.

The woman was blind.

"I've seen you before, Anna. Not with these eyes. No," she laughed. "But there are others like you, Anna. People like me. People with…gifts."

Anna shivered, biting her lip, pulling her knees up to her chest. Everything was so strange, but she figured that she'd hear the woman out. After all, the woman was blind—how would she be able to hurt her?

"Ah ain't got a gift." She replied curtly. "If… what ah can do is permanent, it's a curse."

The woman offered her a ghost of a smile. "I have friends, Anna… they can help you. They can help you tame the curse."

"They can?" her voice wavered. The woman nodded.

"Come with me, Anna. They can help you, I know they can." The milky film seemed to glitter. "I can see it."

_Why not?_ She thought. _Ah got nothin' left. __No home, no friend, no…no mama. Life can't get any worse._

Anna got to her feet, awkwardly dusting off her clothes. "Ah'll come."

"My name is Irene." The woman offered. "Though I am known to some as Destiny."

Anna looked down at the gloves in her hands, turning them over in her hands before slipping them on. The silk was smooth on her skin, and it felt like she was pulling on a whole new identity.

"Ah—ah ain't Anna anymore. Ah'm a runaway, a—" she swallowed. "Murderess. A rogue." She paused, then, on an impulse, reached out to grip the woman's hand in an awkward attempt at introducing herself. "Ah'm Rogue."

Irene smiled, squeezing her hand back as an engine rattled in the distance. "Come, Rogue. Let's get you out of the rain."

* * *

"Anna!" His hoarse yells were in vain; they'd been searching for hours now, to no avail. A warm hand pressed down on his shoulder.

"S'okay, Remy. We gonna find 'er," his Tante soothed. He angrily shook off the hand, not wanting her sympathy.

"Where did she go? She was actin' so strange, _tante._ She left me passed out on de ground—since when would Anna ever do dat?"

"Calm down, child. Wherever Anna went, she wouldn' want y' to be worryin' y'self sick ovah her." He hung his head, more than miserable. Why had his best friend run off?

"Y' know what?" his surrogate mother offered. "Dere's a bus stop just up there. Why don' y' sit dere and rest a little? 'S gettin' late and I don' want y' gettin' sick." Dejected, he obeyed her command, trudging towards the absent bench just a few hundred metres off.

What he saw in the distance shocked him.

It was a girl, perhaps two years younger than him, white bangs fluttering around her auburn hair as she stepped onto the bus. She turned as she stepped on the vehicle, gripping the hand of a woman still standing on the pavement, helping her up.

"Anna!" He yelled, sprinting as fast as he could towards the bus. "Anna! Anna!" She didn't turn, made no move to indicate that she had heard him.

"Anna! Wait! Anna!" He was only a hundred yards away when the doors hissed shut, leaving him stranded, separated from her, maybe for ever.

The bus rolled smoothly away, and the last thing he saw was her face staring out the window. For a moment he though she saw him, but then she shuddered, wiping something away from her cheek, her unusually pale fingers cloaked in black silk that he had never seen before.

"Anna," he muttered weakly, sinking to his knees, not really caring that the rain was soaking his legs. Before Anna had come, he had always been the demon child, tucked away in a corner so that he wouldn't be seen. Before Anna came, he had never had a friend.

Now she was gone, and once again, he was alone.

* * *

_Eight years later_

He sat alone in her room, long legs extending far off the end of the child-sized bed. It had been eight years now, and she hadn't come home.

Oh, sure, that policewoman had said that they'd found her body, that the DNA matched perfectly. Anna's mother hadn't lived through that—she hadn't wanted to—but Remy had had to, and he knew in his heart that she wasn't dead.

He was sure he would have felt something, the breaking of some connection between them. He didn't feel that. He didn't feel much nowadays.

It was useful, not caring, especially in his family business. He didn't feel guilty when he robbed a house, when he had to knock someone out. He never cared about the girls he used to fill the void, to make him feel that maybe he was capable of being loved. He had been abandoned twice now—first as a child, on the streets of New Orleans. Jean-Luc and his family had taken him in, treated him like a son, but he never lost the feeling that he didn't quite belong. There were times when the lights dimmed and his eyes started glowing, and he could almost _feel _the tension, the slight bit of fear that rolled off of them.

It hadn't been like that with Anna. She hadn't gasped the first time she saw him in the dark. She'd leaned forward, breathed a sigh of wonder.

"_That's cool, Remy. How do ya do that?"_

Even now, after so much time had passed, her words still made him smile.

He looked down at the photo frame he had in his hands, gripping it so tight that his knuckles were pasty under his tanned skin. The picture showed them together, just weeks before she disappeared. Inches taller than her seven year old frame, he'd grabbed her from behind and held her there until she made him some promise—perhaps to give him half a candy bar, or a few extra turns the next time they played monopoly. Her lips were pursed, eyes scrunched up in annoyance but somehow still bright and green and mischievous.

He swallowed. The second time around, _she_ was the one who abandoned him. He wasn't angry with her—no, never that. He just missed her. He wanted to know _why._

The emotion was so thick he could almost choke on it. He knew he had to find her—_had_ to find her. _Find her_.

His hands suddenly felt warmer than they had in years. Sparks crackled. The wood vibrated under his skin, turning pink. He swore, hastily fumbling with the lock on the window. It didn't take him long, but now the frame was emitting a low whine which faded as he threw it out the window.

For a few seconds there was a blissful silence. And then, it exploded.

* * *

_One year later_

"Y' don' have t' go."

Remy ignored his brother, touching his fingers to a playing card. It sizzled, flaring pink just like they always did. He tossed it away from him, towards the crater-filled ground cleared especially for this purpose.

"Jean-Luc would like it if y' stayed." Henri persisted. Remy gritted his teeth, snatching another card from the pack. It was an Ace of Spades. _Death, _he thought grimly. _How apt._

It crackled when his fingers grazed the finish.

"Won't m' powers be a hazard?" he asked, tone uncaring. Henri shifted, torn between telling the truth and lying to protect their father.

"Mebbe…" he ventured. "Mebbe dey could be useful."

Something snapped inside the younger man, and the next card he charged glowed unbearably bright, whining painfully. He threw it as hard as he could, but the resulting explosion still knocked him back a few feet. When the smoke cleared, the huge crater it had made was clearly visible.

"I t'ink dat's enough fo' now." Henri commented dryly. Remy's shoulders sagged as he warily drew another card from the pack, flicking it from side to side a few times. Just as he'd expected, it stayed a dull white—the itching sensation in his fingers had subsided.

"I'm outta juice." His voice held no relief, only bitterness. Whatever energy he'd gotten rid of would be back tomorrow, probably tenfold. Henri shook his head, pulling Remy to his feet.

"Don' go." He repeated. Remy stepped away, red-on-black eyes burning into the floor.

"Y' think I want t' kill?" he said softly. "D' y' t'ink I want to walk around like a tickin' time bomb for de rest of m' life? Dey can help me at dis institute, Henri. I need all de help I can get."

Henri nodded, biting his lip.

"Will y' come back for m' weddin'?" He asked hopefully. Remy laughed at that.

"Wouldn't miss it fo' the world, _mon __frère_."

There was silence for a few seconds, before Henri broke out with, "So… Bayville?"

The corners of Remy's mouth turned up in a faint smile.

"_Oui,_" and then, "_Oui._ I'm goin' t' Bayville."

* * *

_Okay, now how's that for a first chapter? I promise y'all, this is the LONGEST first chapter I have ever written- 9 and a bit pages on Microsoft Word!! _

_So, things you should notice in this chapter, just in case I didn't make it clear. (Sorry!)_

_Anna/Rogue's mother is dead. How, you'll learn later._

_Anna/Rogue is with Irene._

_Remy's goin' ta Bayville! Whoop!_

_Until next time! (Which, incidentally, might come quicker if I get some nice inspiring reviews… hint)_

_Allyg1990_


	2. Chapter 2: Reunion

_Soul-sucker… monster…heartless bitch…_

Rogue rubbed her temples in exasperation. She had told Magneto that she wasn't up for this, hadn't rested enough since last time—her psychic blocks had almost dissipated during _that _attack. She'd told him several times, and after that she'd even told _Mystique_. Neither of them had listened.

"It's important this tahme, Rogue." She huffed under her breath, mimicking Magneto's pseudo-sympathetic tone as she pulled herself out of the metallic orb. "Nice try, buckethead. It always is."

"Buckethead!" St. John cackled, doubling over with laughter. "That's a good one, sheila! _Buckethead…_" he mouthed, sending himself into another spasm. Rogue gritted her teeth and rolled her eyes, wishing he wouldn't be so damned _loud_.

"Ah love ya John, you know ah do, but if you don't keep it down while ah've got this headache, ah'm gonna drain ya _dry_!" she warned, dangling her hand in front of his face. He flinched.

"Easy there, sheila. Oi'll be as quiet as a wallaby paddling around Sydney harbour."

"That does not sound so quiet," muttered Piotr Rasputin, lacing his hands together and stretching out his arms as metal sprang up to coat them. Rogue sighed, not making good on her promise but settling for pulling John's goggles off of his face and letting them snap back. His shriek was almost worth the bolt of pain that shot through her head.

"Keep it down, firebug." Sabretooth growled. "We're supposed tah be sneakin'."

"Until the bloody X-Men arrive." Pyro shot back, scowling as he rubbed the bright red line Rogue's attack had left ingrained on his face. "Then we're supposed to blow everything to bits."

"If that X-Man does not do it first." Colossus cut in. Rogue tilted her head to the side, frowning in confusion.

"Which X-Man? They're all pretty powerful, but none 'o them can really 'blow stuff tah bits'. At least, not without ole Buckethead rippin' up the gas pipeline under here lahke he _said_ he would!"

"Buckethead." Pyro snorted. Rogue's glare could have terrified a championship boxer into squealing like a kitten. "All right!" the aussie said hastily, backing away from her. "Oi'm shuttin', oi'm shuttin'."

Colossus offered her a sympathetic smile. "You were not there when he told us." He explained. "Magneto said that you missed one of them out last week."

"What?!" Rogue almost screeched. "Ah did _not_ miss one! Ah went in, absorbed them all and erased their memories with the telepathy ah got, just lahke he told meh to! Ah even scanned the place for minds to make _sure_ ah got them all! An' it's his damned fault that mah head's overloaded an' mah psychic blocks are wearin' down!"

Her team-mate just stood there calmly, letting her rant. Sometimes, he'd found, it was a better idea to let Rogue vent her frustrations in a non-violent way, because when she _did_ get violent it wasn't pretty.

Sabretooth just winced. Sensitive hearing wasn't a quality he enjoyed having at times like this.

Once she'd calmed down, Piotr spoke up again.

"The mutant you didn't absorb was not actually there. If I am remembering correctly, he was at the wedding of his brother."

Rogue shot him a glare. "So technically, I didn't miss one."

The Russian swallowed nervously.

"I was not agreeing with Magneto's words." He tried. Rogue broke into a smile.

"Ah wasn't gettin' mad at yah, Peter. Ah'm just annoyed with that glorified tin man with a cape."

Pyro nearly choked. "Tin man with a—"

In a flash, Rogue's patience snapped and her deadly mood returned.

"John?" She asked calmly as she slipped off a glove, "Can ah ask yah somethin'?"

St. John gave a little laugh. The murderous look in her eyes was rather unsettling.

"Err… sure, sheila. Fire away." He resisted the temptation to laugh at his joke. His life was on the line, and this was no time to live dangerously.

"Are yah suicidal?"

He paused, wondering how to react, then shook his head.

"Not especially. Why d'ya ask?"

At that, Rogue lunged.

"Because ah'm gonna kill yah anyway!"

She would have, too, but Colossus grabbed her shoulder and held her still. "Peter! Let go 'o me! This ain't no time tah be using your damned conscience!"

"The more people we haf on our team," he told her sensibly. "The less you will haf to use your psyches' powers. I would normally not object, but today I haf no aspirin."

Rogue sighed as she slipped her glove back on. "Look at that," she said weakly. "The Iron Giant tried his hand at some humour."

Piotr smiled. "I am very glad that it has made sense to you."

She rolled her eyes, absent-mindedly straightening the uniform.

"So. This mutant that yah say can blow things tah bits. Brief me on him."

"You did not read the memories of the other X-Men?" Piotr questioned, confused.

"Ah try to lock 'em away before ah even see 'em." She explained softly. "The rest of the psyche is bad enough. Ah don't need to attach memories tah the voices that yell at meh when mah blocks are down."

She did not want sympathy; he knew that very well. So instead of trying to comfort her, he answered her original question.

"He is called Gambit. Magneto did not tell us so much about him, except that he is making things blow up by touching them, and that his eyes are very strange."

_Strange eyes…_ Her memories pulled her back ten years, to relive the night her powers emerged. To see her best friend's eyes again, red in the darkness as he lay dead on the forest floor…And her mother…

She swallowed, biting her lip to keep the tears from leaking out. _It's been ten years._ She told herself. _Ten years. Yah should be over it by now._

But she wasn't.

"Rogue?"

"Hmm?" She snapped back to the present. "Oh—blows things up, has weird eyes. Gotcha."

Piotr dropped it. She would tell them when she felt like it. Or maybe she wouldn't. Some secrets were meant to be kept.

"Rogue?" he repeated.

"Yeah?" She replied, disinterested.

"You know that Magneto said he was going to drag up that pipeline?"

"Yeah…" She pursed her lips when Piotr fell silent. "What is it, Peter?"

"Well… he told me to tell you that he would like you to do it yourself, because he has other business to attend to." Rogue pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to calm herself down. That plan lasted about an eighth of a second before she gave up on it.

"I'm gonna kill that _Buckethead_!"

"_Buckethead…_" John tittered.

"Shut up, Pyro!"

* * *

"Ugh," muttered Kitty Pryde, disgusted. "I swear I still have that stupid headache bug. Or food poisoning—whatever Mr. McCoy said it was. The altitude _really_ isn't helping, either."

Remy LeBeau, commonly known as Gambit, couldn't help but smirk. "Pretty lucky dat Gambit had a weddin' t' go t', _neh_?"

Kurt groaned, popping the lid off of a tube of painkillers and shaking out two of the white pills.

"Zat, _meine freunde_, is not fair. Ve got zis stupid bug while you got good food and a party."

"—and _belle filles. _Not'in wrong wit' a pretty girl or two, _n'est pas_?"

Their resident redhead rolled her eyes, stretching her neck.

"You are _such_ a womaniser. It makes me glad that I can't read your mind." She grumbled. "Kurt, pass the Tylenol, will you?"

Remy snatched the pills from the furry mutant, taking the opportunity to walk over to Jean and slip the tube into her hands.

"Y'know," he suggested, voice husky as he crouched down to her eye level, "Now dat Scooter ain't around y' can take dis opportunity t' tell Gambit how y' feel 'bout 'im."

Jean gingerly reached a hand out to his shoulder, pushing him away.

"Thanks for the offer." She replied, her tone saccharine. "But I'm just fine, thanks."

"Fo' now." Remy quipped, and he winked at her before walking back to his own seat and buckling up. "Hank, _mon ami_!" he called out. "How long 'till dis tin can is ready t' land?"

Beast hid a smile. No matter how many times Remy was rejected, he always bounced right back. Not that he was rejected often; only by Jean, and the doctor was beginning to think that Remy only flirted with her to annoy Scott.

"This extremely technologically advanced piece of aircraft will be touching down in approximately three minutes."

"And Evan," Storm added. "Please buckle your seatbelt. I do not want to have to explain to your mother how you managed to fly out the window of a jet and fall three thousand feet to your death."

"What?" Evan yelled in response, yanking an earphone out of one ear. Pietro snickered, taking the opportunity to reach over and jam Spyke's seatbelt into the socket.

"Your aunt said to buckle up, porcupine." He jibed, back in his own seat in a flash. Evan growled, but catching Ororo's warning glance, took a deep breath and rammed the earphone back in, turning up the volume as high as it would go. Even though he _had_ to team up with Pietro and the rest of the brotherhood, it didn't mean he had to like it. Or listen to the jerks, for that matter.

Throughout all of this, Professor Xavier was oddly silent.

"Cut it out, both of you." Kitty grumbled rather futilely, elbowing the boy beside her. "Hey Lance. Wake up, we're landing in like thirty seconds."

"Hnnh?" By the time she had managed to shake him awake, the jet was rattling down a stretch of tarmac, screeching as the wheels scraped the ground.

"Do you think we'll find Mr. Logan?" Kitty asked Remy anxiously as he helped her jump down from the last step of the stairway which wobbled a foot or two above the floor. He flashed her a winning smile.

"It'll be jus' fine _p'tite, _don' y' worry." He assured her, not really sure himself.

He didn't know that the person he _would_ find was far, far more important to him than Logan ever would be.

* * *

"They're here." Piotr said softly, gesturing towards the black jet that was slowly spiralling down to land. Sabretooth nodded.

"'Bout time. Pyro, you're comin' with me. We'll ambush the main group. Colossus, they're gonna search the warehouses at some point. When they get in, punch out the struts. Rogue… you know what to do."

She grinned. "Gawd, don't you sound lahke a cheesy field commander. Don' tell me yah're gonna go all soft on us lahke ya keep sayin' Wolverine has on the X-Men?"

"No," he said gruffly. "I'm just doin' what I get paid to do. Let's move out."

Her smile faded into nothingness just like they did, slipping around corners or onto rooftops. _Tahme tah get tah business,_ she thought to herself, heading towards the east side of the lot where the pipeline was buried deep underground.

It took a while for her cue to come; it seemed like hours that she was propped up against the side of a warehouse, listening to the commotion on the other side of the lot. Then suddenly she heard a loud cracking noise—within seconds, there was only rubble where another warehouse had once stood.

_Peter_, she thought grimly, and turned her thoughts to the task ahead. It was like a routine for her: _step one, close mah eyes; step two, retreat into_ _mah mind; step three, find the psychic block and try to reach through it_.

_That_ was the difficult part; trying to slip through a hairline crack in her mental defences without shattering the wall itself. Somehow, she managed, and snatched the psyche of a ghostly Magneto. He was one of the stronger psyches; she'd had to absorb the man time and again, use his powers to show that she could control them. It wasn't such a bad thing, really—at least he didn't scream at her for sucking the life out of him.

It was just the two of them in her mind now; Magneto expanding by the minute, filling the gaps in the space they shared, and then pressing on _her_ mind—

She gasped, hands flying to her throbbing head. It _hurt_ so much more than it usually did. She'd told him, told him she wasn't ready for this, but he hadn't listened… She swallowed, trying not to focus on the pain, shifting her mind to the pipe. Now that Magneto's psyche was a major force in her mind, she could feel the metal around her, almost taste the magnetic charges in the distance…There it was, maybe twenty feet below the surface of the ground three or four hundred metres in front of her. _This shouldn't be too hard_…

Her right hand turned, palm facing the sky, and she slowly bent her fingers. Metal warped; the ground cracked, spidery fissures forming as the pipe broke the surface. Then she twisted her wrist, and the pipe cracked. She heard a whoop of joy from the direction of the busted pipe, and rolled her eyes half-heartedly. _Pyro._

Fire flicked towards the fuel, and it burst into flames with an almost beautiful crackle. She panted, leaning forward with her hands on her knees, pushing Magneto's psyche back where it came from. Her bangs fell forward, covering her face, but she didn't bother pushing them back. It would take too much effort.

"Dat's a nice party trick y' got dere, _chèrie. _Mind teachin' Remy how y' did it?"

Time stood still; she froze, held her breath. That voice, that _name_… no. It couldn't be. It was his psyche—yes, that was it. It had broken through her weakened defences, taken over her mind, seized control of her perception. _It's an illusion._ _It… it has to be._

"Y' bein' awful quiet, p'tit. Mebbe Remy c'n change dat."

To his surprise, all he heard in response was a stifled sob.

"R-remy?" She stuttered, voice shaky, the name rolling unfamiliarly off her tongue. Had she ever said it, these past ten years, even just once?

"N-no." It couldn't be.

_He lay sprawled on the floor, eyes red and accusing._

"Stop it! You're dead!" She choked, hands flying to her face, rubbing her eyes.

_She had just killed her best friend._

"You're _dead_!"

_Anna, what have y' done?_

"Ah killed you!"

He couldn't reply. He just—had to know.

Gently, he reached a hand out to her shoulder. She flinched when he touched her, but he didn't let go; instead, he spun her around to face him, and inhaled sharply.

The girl—_woman_, he thought; the person before him was no child—was pale skinned, the white stripes that framed her face sticking in wispy strands to her sweat-streaked cheeks. Her lips were full, painted in a dark colour he didn't remember her ever showing a fondness for; and her eyes… _Dieu, _her eyes! Though they were rimmed with a dark smudge of kohl, the bright green hue still managed to shine through and pierce his heart. It wasn't the hair so much as her eyes that convinced him that it was her.

She had changed so much!

"Anna." He breathed, not quite sure if she was real—had he been struck down, maybe attacked with some sort of telepathy? Was he imagining her—imagining the way she looked at him? Just as if she'd seen a ghost.

"Remy." She swallowed. "No. _No_. Ah killed you."

That again. How could she think that?

"Shh..." he lifted a hand to her face, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She stood still the whole while as if she was petrified, terrified by the sight of him. "Y're real." He said when he was done. "How can—what are y' doin' here?"

"How can _you _be here?" she asked nervously, not convinced. "You touched mah skin. You should be—" She cut herself off, reaching up, grazing a finger along his cheek. Her hand fell to her side; "Yah're real, too," she confirmed, almost awestruck. "Yah're… yah're…"

He stepped forward, wanting to wrap his arms around her, squeeze her, make up for lost time. Again, she flinched, hand shooting out to push him back.

"Don't touch meh."

He took a step back, frustrated. "Why's dat? Y' said the same t'ing de night y' ran away!"

She looked up at him, eyes flitting up to his.

…_Magneto did not tell us so much about him, except that he is making things blow up by touching them, and that his eyes are very strange…_

Aha.

"Yah're Gambit." She said at last. "Yah… yah're a mutant."

He froze.

"How… how d'ya know…"

The penny dropped.

"So are you." He gave a little laugh, voice taking on a bitter edge. "Must be, runnin' around here in spandex. Y're wit' Magneto."

She looked away, inclined her head.

"Dat why y' left?" She took a breath and turned to meet his eyes.

"Mah powers…" She trailed off, and he was about to make an angry retort when she spoke again. "Mah powers… ah suck the powers—memories—the life—outta anyone ah touch. That's why ah left. Ah thought ah killed yah."

Something clicked inside, and her eyes widened. "Mama! Is she...?"

His face betrayed the truth. She bit her lip, eyes welling up with tears that she had never cried before.

He pulled her towards him.

"Don't—"

"I ain't gonna touch y'. Jus'…" He hugged her tight, wished he could do something to ease the sobs that wracked her body. "I'm so sorry."

She pulled away after a minute, laughing through her tears. "Look at that—ah got yah shirt and yah snazzy new trench coat all wet. Gawd, it's really you. Remy, it's _you_! Look at yah! How tall were yah the last time ah saw yah? Three feet?"

He snickered. "_Non, chèrie,_ that was y'. I was at least five feet tall."

She rolled her eyes. "Sure yah were—ah remember yah bein' chest-height on Tante Mattie, and she ain't exactly the tallest 'o women. Gawd, how yah hated bein' hugged!"

He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Not sure I'd mind bein' chest height on a _belle femme_ dese days—not Tante Mattie 'o course, but y' get m' drift."

She shuddered, and then glanced up at him.

"So…d'ya have a girlfriend? Wife? A couple 'o illegitimate children tucked away somewhere?"

He shook his head. "_Non, _and _non_ again. Not sure 'bout de t'ird one t'ough…."

She huffed, and then paused, carefully throwing herself at him, hugging him for all she was worth. "Ah missed yah so much…" He hugged her back, hand gently smoothing down her hair.

"I missed y' too, _chèrie_… more den I can say." They stood like that for a long moment, and Remy was almost shocked by how right it felt—how a hole he'd nurtured for ten years had suddenly been filled, his life made complete in an instant.

"So… yah were at Henri's weddin' last week?" She said after a while, cheek still pressed against his chest. He did a double take; how did she know?

"Yeah. Y' got telepathy or somet'in?"

She laughed. "Only sometimes."

He grinned. "_Oui_, I was. He jus' went an' married Mercy—y' remember de girl who lived 'round the corner? She's a smart one, dat _fille_. Keeps 'im in line."

"Henri and _Mercy,_" she breathed. "Who would'a thought?"

There was another moment of comfortable silence, and then Rogue spoke up again.

"So, _Gambit_, ah hear ya can… well, 'blow things tah bits' to use Pyro's words. Yah wanna clarify on that?"

"_Oui._" He replied, voice suddenly guarded. "I can change de potential energy in an object t' kinetic energy… basically blow up anyt'in' dat ain't livin'." He paused. "Is dis Pyro _homme _y' boyfriend?"

Rogue stared at him, a strained expression on her face. Then she burst out laughing, slipping out of his hold, though her hands still held onto his.

"Pyro…mah…" she sniggered. "Lord, that's about the funniest thing ah've heard in the last ten years." She giggled again, then sobered up. "Nah, he's just mah team-mate. Not like any guy who knows 'bout mah power wants tah get within ten feet 'o meh anyway. Too dangerous, for meh _and_ for them."

"For y'?" Remy questioned. Rogue shrugged.

"All the people ah've absorbed… they get stuck in mah head. Ah've got a block now, tah keep them from yellin' at meh all the time."

Remy grimaced. "I'm sorry." A life without touch? He couldn't imagine it. Never able lace your bare fingers together with another person's, never able to cup their face in your hands, never able to kiss them, never able to have…

For some reason, he'd rather she wasn't thinking about _that_. It must have been a reflex, a protectiveness stemming from their pseudo-sibling relationship—he couldn't think what else it could be.

She waved his apology away. "It ain't so bad. Magneto knows a couple of telepaths that ah've met once or twice, they've been tryin' tah help meh."

He looked down at their joined hands, his fingers bare, her whole hand covered. _Never able to cup their face in your hands…_

"It's gotta be hard." He said softly.

She looked away, something flashing in her eyes. "Lahke ah said, it ain't so bad."

The second time she reassured him, he didn't believe it. There were a thousand million questions swirling around his skull, and this was the one he couldn't let go of.

A thought struck him.

"Y' said dat telepaths could help y'."

Her eyes found his again. "Yeah."

He grinned, giving her hands a quick squeeze. "Well, de _homme_ dat runs de institute, de place 'm livin', he's a telepath—one of de strongest in the world. Mebbe _he_ could help y'."

For a moment she seemed like she would smile; then a memory crashed down on her, crushing the hope that had dared to blossom in those few seconds.

"Maybe so. But ah can't come."

His face fell. "Why not? Y' comin' wit' me, aren't y'?" he pleaded. She tried to look away, but he brought his gloved palm to her cheek, forcing her to look at him. "Anna. Don' look away like dat. Tell me why."

"Ah—" she choked out, "Ah ain't Anna anymore. Ah'm Rogue. Ah have been for ten years now. Remy, ah can't come with you, because ah'm _Magneto's_ Rogue—his secret weapon, the strongest acolyte he has. He's never gonna let me go."

Remy growled in frustration. "_Non_. He can't keep y' forever, Anna. I'm gonna go right now and tell the Professor t' get y' outta dis crazy—"

"Ah ain't Anna." She whispered, cutting him off. "Call me Rogue." Seeing his sceptical look, she added, "Please?"

He sighed. "_Bien, chèrie,_" he compromised. "But 'm gonna go an' talk t' de Professor right n—"

With a wave of nausea, something hit her.

"The Professor. _The Professor._ Oh gawd, of all the times for Mystique tah get involved in something…"

Remy frowned. "What are y' talkin' about, _chere_? How do y' know Mystique?"

"She was my foster mom. One of them, at least. Oh gawd, oh gawd…" she was babbling now, and she knew it, but she couldn't stop herself. The institute- it was practically Remy's home! If she had known she would have stopped Mystique from—

"_Chere_?" She took a deep breath.

"Mystique... she's… impersonating your Professor."

Remy shot her a blank stare. "Y' sure about dat?"

She nodded vigorously. "More than sure. Damnit, Remy! She kidnapped the real man and hid him somewhere! She was told by Magneto to lure y'all over here, you X-Men and Mystique's bunch of fools, get y'all to battle it out against each other and us. There's some project goin' on underground, anti-mutant warfare, he was goin' tah expose it… expose us all as mutants…"

Remy paled. "_Dieu_, y' ain't serious?"

"Ah'm dead serious. The guy's crazy, but ah never really thought about the consequences for y'all before. Ah kind sort of take care of myself, but you ain't _never_ gonna get to live a normal lahfe after this!" She was close to hyperventilating now; how had she unknowingly managed to help wreck her best friend's life?

"Shh, calm down, _chèrie._ Y' sure about this."

Rogue grimaced. "There's only one way tah be certain…"

A boom like a thunderclap echoed through the area, and Rogue felt the ground tremble beneath her feet. Remy pulled her towards him.

"Damnit! Magneto's here!" She yelled over the ruckus. Remy swore, but only got halfway through the word before another boom cut him off, throwing both of them onto the floor. Rogue rolled away from her friend's body as soon as she hit the ground. _If ah'm ever going tah absorb him by accident, this really ain't the right tahme!_

Blinking a few times to get rid of the dark spots floating at the forefront of her vision, she looked up to survey the scene.

What she saw terrified her.

A forty foot _monster_, guns swivelling and targeting every mutant in sight. She swallowed. They were in such deep—

"_Chèrie_! Watch out!" He grabbed her covered wrist, yanking her towards him. She stared dumbly at the place she had just been as some sort of green goo splattered on the tarmac, hardening into rock almost instantly. "Y'okay?" She took a deep breath.

"Ah'm fahne." She turned to face him, grinning. "Thanks." He grinned back.

"What're friends for?" He slowly got to his feet, pulling her up after him. Another crash startled him; he turned to see what had been hit. His eye caught the Professor's overturned wheelchair tossed aside, its usual inhabitant sprawled on the ground next to it. The figure looked up; their eyes met, and the Professor's—or Mystique's, really—narrowed, and he knew that _she_ knew that she'd been found out.

"Remy! Get over here!" The monster was moving now, crushing anything in its path. Rogue gasped. "Damn Magneto! It's headin' for the road—there are innocent people out there!" She started sprinting, and Remy soon caught up with her.

"_Chere-_ stay back dere. I jus' found y', I ain't gonna lose y' to some crazy robot!"

"Are you crazy?! You saw meh bust that pipe. Ah'm better equipped tah handle that than _anybody_!"

Within seconds, they had reached the carnage. There were craters everywhere; the rattle of gunfire punctuated every second and the distant wail of sirens blared over it all. Lightning cracked—Storm, Remy realized, and his fingers flew to his pockets, drawing out his signature pack of cards. He drew two, gifting them with pink fire before tossing them at the robot. They sliced through the air, exploding when they came into contact with the giant and ripping off a large chunk of shoulder.

"Now that's a party trick _ah'd_ like tah learn!" Rogue murmured in approval. He flashed her a smile, drawing another few cards from the pack.

"Believe you me, _chere_, y'aint seen not'in' yet!"

She noticed that he held these cards for longer; that their charge was brighter than it had been the last time, glowing an eye-watering magenta. He threw them with painstaking accuracy, right at the monster's throat. The resulting explosion was deafening.

The smoke cleared, and the monster had lost its head.

Someone let out a whoop; it was Kitty, doing a little victory dance on the sidewalk.

"Woo-hoo! Take that, you little piece of—"

"Kitty! Watch out!" Evan threw himself towards her, shoving her out of the way of the green mass that encased him.

"—Merde." Gambit finished. "Not'in' more frightenin' den a _headless_ robot."

The street was in chaos; the robot had started to move again, shooting at civilians, crushing cars, trapping mutants. Rogue heard a sob from above her—it was the weather-witch.

"Is it her son that just got trapped?" She asked Remy, running at full tilt around the wreckage. He shook his head.

"Nephew. Same t'ing, really. She don't have any kids."

That struck her—the people being captured weren't just mutants—they were friends, family to some. She slowed to halt, standing her ground. She had to put a stop to this once and for all.

"_Chere_? Anna! What are y' doin'?" _Step one, close mah eyes. Step two…_

Remy shook her, but it was too late. She had retreated inside herself.

_Step three…_ Which psyche would be most effective? _Magneto, ah think… maybe that telekinetic redhead… think tearing, ripping, shredding…the weather witch!_

She grabbed them one by one, pulling them to the front of her consciousness, letting them expand, fill her mind…

Her scream was bloodcurdling.

"Anna! Rogue! Are y' okay? _Anna_!"

She twitched, lifting a clenched fist. Her spasms grew more violent by the second, limbs shaking uncontrollably.

"Anna… please…"

Her eyes snapped open, flashing white, yellow, green….

She unclenched her fist.

A roar of power swirled around her, hitting the monster right in the chest. There was an explosion, or two, or three; Remy was too disorientated to tell. He could pick out the crack of lightning, the grating of metal on metal, the twang that usually accompanied telekinesis, all jumbled up into one disconcerting mess. Streams of smoke blew out of the cacophony, stinging his eyes, clouding his vision…he blinked.

The robot was a pile of rubble.

"X-Men! Back to the jet! Now!"

Gambit ignored Beast's command; he was too absorbed in the unconscious girl on the ground in front of him.

"Rogue! Anna! _Cherie!_ Wake up!" He shook her, to no avail. "Anna… don' leave me. Don' leave me again."

"I will take her from here." Gambit's head snapped up; it was the steel-skinned mutant, another of Magneto's acolytes.

"Y' don' understand… me and her, we go back a long way." The older mutant nodded.

"Yes. But you haf to understand that things at your institute are not going to be going so good for a little while. She will be safer with us."

Remy sighed, turning back to his best friend's body. It had been so long… he didn't want to lose her again.

"Do y' promise?" He asked the man, his voice taking on a childishly possessive tone.

Colossus nodded. "I promise."

Remy spared one last look at her, ran his hand over her striped hair one last time.

"_Au revoir_, Anna." He whispered softly, carefully slipping his hands underneath her, lifting her into the acolyte's arms. The man made as if to move, but Remy interrupted him.

"Will y' tell her to get in touch once t'ings die down? I lost her f'r ten years last time. I don' want dat t' happen again." Colossus nodded.

"I will." With that he turned his back on the X-Man, turned and carried her away.

He stared after them, thoroughly confused by the day's events. Who knew that another battle with the enemy could change so much?

"Gambit! Return to the plane at once_!_" Remy sighed, turning on his heel and running towards the X-Jet.

No matter what happened, some things would never change.

* * *

_-hyperventilates- That was fifteen pages, guys. 5,160 words. _

_I'm so proud._

_Thanks for all your amazing reviews, the warm fuzzies really motivate me to write more. Hope y'all liked this chapter as much as the first one… drop me a line, tell me what you thought! :)_

_Thanks to TheRealRogue for pointing out a little confusing part which has since been fixed! :)_

_Just a quick thought—is any of the French confusing enough that I have to start translating it down here? _

_Until the next instalment…_

_Allyg1990_


	3. Chapter 3: Reflection

Those fast-paced steps Remy took towards the X-Jet were dazed, unthinking, as though his body was moving but his mind was somewhere else entirely.

_Anna's alive…an' hurt…callin' herself Rogue…wit' Magneto…ten years…ran away…powers…can't touch…foster-mom…mystique…_

Mystique.

He returned to his body with a jolt.

"_Mystique... she's… impersonating your Professor."_

She was on that plane!

It didn't take him all that long to sprint to the jet—he dove inside, the steps folding up behind him and the door sliding closed with a quiet hiss as the plane started to move. His eyes scanned the area, flicking from left to right—for some reason, all of the women seemed to be in tears, except for Ororo, who was at an odd stage between extremely upset and overjoyed—she had a tissue in one hand, her other one glued to her nephew's wrist.

"Where's de Professor?" Remy asked breathlessly, leaning against the side of the X-Jet. Kitty looked up, eyes red and tear-streaked.

"The…the professor was captured," she sniffed, a tissue pressed to her nose. Remy exhaled in relief.

"Well, dat's okay den," he muttered quietly—or maybe not so quietly, judging by the vicious glares he was getting.

Before he could blink, he was upside down, an invisible force gripping his ankle.

"How _dare_ you." Jean snarled, hand outstretched and fingers crooked to keep him suspended. "The Professor has always been nothing but kind to you! He took you in when he _knew_ you were a thief and a liability! He lets you stay, even though he _knows _that you still disappear from time to time and nobody knows where you've been!"

"P'tit…" he pleaded, more on the verge of asphyxiation than anything else.

"Don't you '_petite' _me! Give me _one_ good reason why I should let you talk!"

"Cause…" he mentally crossed his fingers, praying that his garbled voice would manage to get the point across. "De Professor dat got captured ain't de real Professor—Mystique was impersonatin' him."

Jean paused for a second, hesitant. His thief's training was telling him that she was thinking over his words, linking them back to the last few days—that the 'Professor' had been acting strange, and Remy would bet his life on the fact that her mentor hadn't contacted her psychically for a while, either.

She cleared her throat.

"How do you know?" she asked, her voice guarded. Remy smirked—he knew that he'd planted the doubt in her mind. Then his stomach sank. He was going to have to explain about Anna, and Jean was not going to believe him.

"Remy….Remy got told by one of de Acolytes." He admitted.

Jean dropped him on his head.

"You know what, Remy LeBeau? For a second there, I _just_ about believed you. _Just._ But if you expect me to trust an _Acolyte_, you picked the wrong girl." Remy groaned, rubbing the tender part of his skull. He had _known_ that she wouldn't take it well.

"Remy don' expect y' t' trust an Acolyte, but de _fille _dat told 'im, she ain't y' ordinary terrorist." Thinking back on it, he added, "Not dat any of dem are, but dat's _un peu _off de topic, _non_?"

"Calm down and do not babble," Storm chided. "Explain what it is exactly what you are trying to say." He glanced at her, accidentally meeting Evan's gaze. His features were smooth, showing none of their usual emotion—well, apart from his eyes. Remy frowned. Was Evan _death staring _him?

"Dis Acolyte," he started, brushing off the younger boy's glare, "she's… an old friend 'o mine. I'd trust 'er wit' m' life."

For the most part, they seemed to believe him. Hank sighed, switching the controls to autopilot and swivelling around to face the others.

"What now?"

There was silence; what could they do without the Professor to guide them? He had always been there, showing them the way, but now he'd been captured—heck, they didn't even have Wolverine to spur them on. No Professor, no Logan—and Scott was still missing, too.

"I don't know about you geeks," Lance called from the back of the jet, "but trying to _rescue_ people seems like a good place to start."

Wanda rolled her eyes, smacking him from behind. "Wow, Lance! That was _intelligent, _except for the fact that you forgot that they haven't got a telepath strong enough to find anyone."

"You know about Cerebro?" Jean asked in surprise. Wanda raised an eyebrow as if to say, _how dumb _are_ you?_

"I think the whole mutant _community_ knows about Cerebro. Good news travels fast, and all that jazz."

While Jean was thinking over this, Gambit had made his way towards the back of the plane, scooting in beside Kitty, who'd abandoned Lance for an empty row—well, mostly empty, except for the semi-conscious Nightcrawler who was curled up and dazed in the window seat.

"Y' okay, _chaton_?"

She nodded miserably, sliding up a little to make room and eliciting a confused sound from her friend in the process. "Yeah. I guess it's just the shock or something." Remy nodded.

"Makes sense, _non?_ It can't be nice t' see y' mentor captured an' carted away."

Kitty offered him a watery smile. "I guess it's lucky that most of us _didn't_ witness that. I'd probably be a lot worse, seeing him so…powerless."

Remy had to agree. For all that the man was a cripple in a wheelchair, he exuded capability. Maybe it was the telepa—wait, had she just said that she _didn't_ see him taken away?

"What d' y' mean, y' didn' see him? How d' y' know he got captured?"

Kitty sighed. "_Most_ of us didn't, Gambit. Evan saw him, just as he managed to bust out of the _slime_."

"Only de porcupine saw him?" Gambit repeated carefully. Kitty nodded.

"Yeah. Only Evan."

"How did…_Evan_ manage to break outta de goo?"

Kitty shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe he spiked it. Look, don't be so, like, suspicious. Everyone's had a totally rough day. A _weird_ day. Cool down a bit, okay?"

Remy half-smiled. "_Excusez-moi_, p'tit. Remy can't help his t'ieves senses buttin' in any more den he can help breathin'."

Kitty smiled back. For a few minutes, neither of them spoke, just sat and listened to the whir of engines, the occasional strains of bickering floating down from the front of the plane, and Kurt's odd snores.

"Gam— err, Remy?"

He smiled.

"_Oui_?"

Kitty spoke hesitantly, picking her words with care.

"You know your friend? The one who's with Magneto?"

Cold fingers squeezed his stomach. After ten years—out of _all_ the places she could have been! _No, no_, he corrected. At least she was safe. That was the important thing.

"_Oui?_"

"Is she—" Kitty paused. "_Why _is she with him? I mean…you know."

Remy swallowed. She'd hit the nail on the head with that one.

"It don't look like she's got a choice, _chaton_," he explained, tone regretful and somewhat bitter. He'd have to find out more about that, next time he saw her.

_Next time?_

_Yes_. There _would_ be a next time. He'd make sure of it, whatever happened.

"That's awful." Kitty said quietly. Remy nodded.

The awkward silence returned, not that Remy really noticed. His mind was almost too occupied to pick up the sly words she spoke next.

"You know… she's really pretty," she noted, throwing him a sidelong glance. "Are you sure you don't…"

"_Oui_." Remy interjected firmly. "We're jus' like brot'er and sister. Besides," he added as an explanation that would satisfy Kitty, "her mutation… she can't touch anyone wit'out knockin' em out."

To his surprise, Kitty almost laughed.

"Like that would stop you!" she teased, and then amended her sentence. "I mean, if you _did_ like her, um, in _that_ way, which you _obviously _don't."

"_Exactement__._ How 'bout we change the subject now? What y' pointing out ain't exactly de most appealin' of topics _pour moi_."

"Right. Sorry." And nothing more was said, though it was something that Kitty would later think about, analyzing his words, and speculating over that odd look that had come over his face. But for now, there were more pressing matters at hand, and her thoughts turned to other things.

* * *

_Blip. Blip. Blip._

Piotr sat, listening to the slow, steady rhythm of _beeps_ given out by the heart rate monitor. It wasn't that reading that bothered him; the erratic line on the screen that displayed brain activity was more worrying. It flitted up and down, climbing to the top of the panel in short bursts that were almost immediately followed by it flattening out near the bottom.

He peered at the patient's face; her eyes were squeezed shut, features smooth and expressionless—for now. Sporadically, almost perfectly in synch with the spikes on the chart he was watching, her forehead would scrunch up, muscles would tense and fingers curl up into fists as she fought her invisible enemies.

As much as she would have hated it, he couldn't help but worry about Rogue. He hated that she had to lead this life; he hated that every effort that had been made to bring her powers under control had failed; and most of all, he hated Magneto. He always would have, even if the man _hadn't_ hidden his sister away. The way he treated Rogue was—_unbelievable_. She was their strongest member, their brightest star, but somehow still the most vulnerable one, and Magneto treated her like dirt. No, worse than that—he treated her as if she was an animal bound to following his control.

_Blip. Blip. Blip._

"'Ow's she doin'?"

Piotr sighed, turning around to find St John's head stuck through the door, neon orange hair stuck up in all directions, his goggles hanging around his neck.

"Not so good. Sometimes she is not moving; sometimes she is looking as if she is having nightmares."

The Aussie let out his own sigh, slipping in and throwing himself onto a neighbouring chair. The two men shared an awkward silence; inevitably, Pyro was the one who broke it.

"We told 'im," he started, running a hand through his hair to smooth it and unintentionally making it messier. "Oiy told 'im and you told 'im. But did the bloke listen? No."

"This time was too hard for her." Colossus replied, flinching when the girl on the bed did. "Splitting that pipe would have been hard enough after absorbing every one of the X-Men. But after she destroyed that Sentinel…"

The room was quiet again, until St. John had another outburst. "The bloke didn't even care! Just told us to bung some wires on 'er and make sure she lived through it! She could 'ave died, Petey! And oiy know she can be annoyin' and all—"

"I am thinking that you haf got that the wrong way around." Piotr muttered under his breath. John was too wrapped up to hear him.

"—but she's moiy friend. She's _our_ friend. If oiy could, oiy'd grab 'er… well, _you_'d grab 'er, because oiy'd prob'ly drop 'er… and we'd take her to those X-Men. They could fix 'er up pretty good."

"You cannot." Piotr interjected, so quiet that John barely heard him. "I cannot. We are both bound to Magneto."

John slumped back down on his chair again, dejected. "Yeah. Oiy know." He paused. "Oiy reckon prison might not 'ave been so bad. Oiy mean, they wouldn't let me 'ave moiy fire, but oiy wouldn't be powerless about this," he gestured to Rogue. "either."

"Do not say that. The only good thing about us being under Magneto's command is that there is _someone_ that cares about Rogue. You know that Magneto does not, and Mystique does not. The precognitive woman… Irene? Maybe she was caring about Rogue, but she does not come anymore."

John shot a sly glance at the Russian. "Looks like we aren't the only ones who care for 'er at the moment—who was that X-Man bloke she was talking to during our battle?"

"Gambit was telling me that they were friends when they were very small." Piotr explained, his small smile offering John everything else he thought. The pyromaniac nodded wisely.

"Do ya think he likes 'er?"

Piotr shushed him, for some reason very nervous. "Be quiet, comrade. It is said that when people are unconscious sometimes they can hear you. I do not know what you are thinking, but if she is hearing us Rogue would not be very happy."

St. John only had to reflect on the events of a few hours ago to conclude that Piotr had made a very good point.

"No worries, mate. Oiy reckon that if Rogue heard us, she'd be madder than a wallaby stuck in a dung heap. And let me tell ya, you don't get critters much madder than that. Oi've got the scars to prove it." With that he waltzed out, leaving Piotr to stare at the door in bewilderment long after his teammate was gone.

"Sometimes it is better not to know." Colossus muttered at last, shaking all thoughts of rodent-like animals in dung heaps out of his head and shifting his focus back to the comforting bleeping of the heart rate monitor.

* * *

_The rhythmic thud of her rubber ball against the pavement agitated him because it hadn't been punctuated by her voice for some time now. What was it that he had last said? His frenzied mind couldn't remember. Had he offended her, bored her? Had the novelty of an odd-eyed freak for a companion finally worn off? _

"_Anna?" The bouncing continued, and she didn't look up at him, instead staring at her toy with her brows furrowed in fevered concentration._

"_Yeah?"_

_His stomach turned; her indifference didn't exactly boost his confidence. Still, better to know now than to nurture false hopes which would only be crushed later._

"_Are we friends?" He asked quietly. The bouncing stopped; she shot him a quizzical look._

"_You're nice to meh, and ah'm nice tah you, and we always have fun. Doesn't that make us friends?"_

_He almost smiled. It wasn't that simple—not really—but to little Anna, wise for her years though really just shy of seven, friendship _was_ that easy to define._

"_Don' it bother y' dat I'm… different?" _

_Anna pursed her lips in thought for a moment before grabbing his hand and pulling him down to her level. Verdant eyes scanned his face; after a few seconds she shrugged. "Are yah hidin' a third ear or somethin'? Ah can't find nothin' different about yah."_

_He pulled out of her grip, disgusted. "Don' pull dat act on me. How often do y' see a kid with demon eyes dat glow in de dark?"_

"_How often do yah see people with two colored hair?" She retorted._

"_Dat ain't de same." He muttered sulkily. _

"_Yeah it is." She insisted. "Maybe ah'm dyin' mah hair like Mama sometimes tells people, an' maybe you're wearin' those weird lens things that Henri stole from the drugstore last week and left on the bathroom floor so we stepped on them. They were all squishy and gross." She was rambling, trying to change the subject. He stood firm._

"_So… I don't scare y'?" He asked, trying to confirm it._

_She snorted. "Course yah don't." There was a short period of silence during which their eyes locked, and a small smile touched upon her lips. On an impulse, she threw herself at him, flinging her little arms around his neck and hugging him. "You're the bestest friend ah ever had."_

"We're coming in to land." Beast's voice dragged Remy back from his trip down memory lane. He blinked, trying to remember which event he'd wrenched from the depths of time—yes, that was it: her innocent declaration of friendship, just a few weeks after they'd met. He remembered how it had felt for him; as if things had fallen into place, and for the first time, he was needed.

The plane fell back into a pensive silence, and his thoughts began to wander again… _her eyes, staring up at him with the utmost trust, wisps of white and auburn hair stuck to the smears of gloss on her lips. "You're the bestest friend I ever had." _

Lip-gloss…That brought back another memory from just a few days later.

"_Look!" Anna said proudly, brandishing a fluorescent plastic tube. "Look what Mercy got meh for mah birthday!" _

_Remy stared at it with a dubious expression marring his face. "It's lip-gloss."_

"_Yeah!" She twisted the cap, pulling the wand free with a popping noise. "It's new—and strawberry flavoured." She then proceeded to carefully paint it on her lips, somehow managing not to get it all over her face, even without the use of a mirror. Remy had to admit that it was kind of impressive._

"_It tastes really nice." She offered, grinning up at him and extending the wand. "Wanna try some?"_

_Remy shuddered. "No t'anks. I'm jus' fine wit'out."_

_She shook her head. "C'mon, it's really yummy." Anna took a step forward. Remy took a step back. _

"_Really, Anna, it's okay…" _

"_Remy..." she whined, drawing out the two syllables as long as she possibly could. Remy swallowed, biting his lip. He'd do a lot for her, and she knew it, but wearing makeup just wasn't one of them._

"_Anna…"_

"_Remy…" she said again, smiling wickedly. She kept walking, pushing him farther and farther backwards until…_

_Splash._

"_Gotcha!" She crowed ecstatically, waving the little pink tube in the air. "Ah gotcha to walk straight back into the bayou!"_

_Remy scowled, soaked and dirty and feeling very much like a drowned cat._

"_Dat ain't funny—"_

"No!"

This time it was a gasp that startled him. His eyes shot open, and he turned to find Kitty staring out the window, fingers pressed to her open mouth.

"Oh no…" she whispered, prompting him to lean over a little further and find out what had caused her reaction.

What he saw shocked him.

The place he had come to call home was gone—all he could see was a pit of burnt and blackened rubble with flames licking at what remained; tendrils of smoke slowly curling into the sky and mingling with his own horrified reflection in the glass.

* * *

_Okay, a little less for you to slog through this time… only three thousand words. I would have written more, but it felt like a decent time to cut… and I didn't feel like writing another ten pages. :)_

_Things to note with this chapter: The Evan part is confusing. I'm aware of that. I'm hoping that you might figure out what's goin' on, but if you don't, I'll slap myself around the head and try not to do it again._

_Also, do you guys like the review reply thingy as it is now, or would you prefer shout-outs? I have no idea what people like, so TELL ME. I like having things to ponder. Hmmm…_

_Merci beaucoup to my awesome beta mspotts (that's ms potts, not m spotts as I first thought) for suggesting lots of funky dory things for this chapter. Without her, it would be (and I quote) a 'lot less dramatic. Yes, Ally. Do that. Trust me. It'll be AMAZING.'_

_Yeah, I made up the last part. Go figure. Tiredness + black tea with lots of sugar in the mornings does that to an author. So I'm signing off before I freak you out _too_ much. Yawn._

_Hope y'all liked it!_

_Allyg1990_


	4. Chapter 4: Risk

It was with a silent audience that the mansion burned. Silent faces watched the smoldering embers that were all that was left of their home, first from the windows of the X-Jet, then on the charred lawn like a congregation at a funeral service, standing so close to the flaming pyre that they could feel the heat sear their skin.

It was Jean who made the first sound; a strangled sob that choked its way out of her throat, cutting through the crackle of burning rubble.

"Jubilee… Bobby… Sam…Jamie…Ray… _Scott_!"

Her voice lifted as she spoke the name of her best friend, her telepathy leaking out in streams and wrapping around his vibrant, _living_ telepathic signature.

_Scott, Scott, Scott!_ she chanted. _Scott's alive, Scott's alive, Scott's al—_

The person in question stumbled out of the surrounding forest, his clothes hanging off of him in charred rags, purple bruises and red lacerations blossoming over his skin.

Jean gasped. Remy winced. Now, as a rule, he wasn't too fond of their fearless leader, but seeing him fallen to pieces was an educational experience in empathy.

"Where's the Professor?" Scott raged, hand halfway to the visor that was dangerously close to sliding off. "Where is he?" From behind him came the rest of the New Mutants, coughing and covered in soot. This time Beast stepped towards the victims, but Scott latched angry fingers around his arm. "Where is he?" he spat again.

Beast gently pried off the younger man's hand. "We know about Mystique. Gambit can explain the technicalities, but now I must check if the others are injured."

Scott's shoulders slumped in defeat, and an ashamed expression flitted over his face. Remy took the chance to butt in.

"She was impersonatin' de Professor," he clarified. "Spyke over here saw de 'Professor' get captured by some nasty monsters while we were fightin' dem in broad daylight."

Scott seemed to sag a little more.

"Broad daylight?" he whispered. Remy inclined his head.

"_Oui._ De mutant secret ain't quite a secret no more."

The X-Men stood in silence for a moment, as if in mourning for their shattered lives. Then they got back to business.

"I don't think Mystique was captured." Scott said evenly. "She's too sneaky. Odds are, she's standing _right_ here, impersonating one of us."

"Gosh." Kitty babbled nervously. "Let's all say one thing that no-one else would know about us. Um, I like, failed Home Ec. eight times."

"The whole of Bayville knows about that." Bobby grumbled from afar. "Using our powers would be a better idea."

Remy shot her a reassuring smile. "I don't t'ink it's gonna come to dat, _chaton_." His gaze panned along the group, pausing at a stony-faced Evan. "Somet'in' 'bout Spyke's story ain't quite fittin' de puzzle. Say y' managed to bust outta dat stasis goo—how come Wolverine didn't, seeing as dose adamantium claws can cut t'rough anyt'ing?"

Thunder groaned; lighting crackled across the smoky sky.

"Are you accusing Evan of being an impostor?" Storm shot back, eyes acquiring a dangerous milky film. Remy shrugged.

"Let y' nephew speak for himself, _d'accord_?"

All eyes turned to the younger boy. Evan's blank stare shifted, changed into a sly smile.

"You're not as stupid as you look, _Gambit_," he said, and the voice that left his lips was Mystique's. His features changed, blonde hair morphing into red, brown skin darkening to blue.

Lighting struck the ground at Mystique's feet.

"You _dared_," Storm seethed, "to impersonate Evan. You _dared_ to trick us."

Mystique dodged the electricity almost lazily. "I would have succeeded, too, if it weren't for the Cajun. He must be sharper than you give him credit for."

"_Merci._" Remy's fingers slipped into his pockets, tightening around his collapsible staff. "Shame dat y' ain't gonna live t' see any more of m' clever moments."

The shapeshifter's eyes hardened. "If you want to see any of them—Evan, Wolverine, _The Professor_—you'll back off."

"Yo, Mystique!" Toad yelled out from his position in the little crowd of Brotherhood members separate from the gang of X-Men, "What about Blob?"

Wanda poked him in the back, _hard_. "You're such an idiot. Why would the X-Men care about Blob?"

Thoroughly unhappy that her speech had been interrupted, Mystique glared at the two. Wanda just glared back, but Toad swallowed hard and shut up.

"What do you want, Mystique?" Jean asked, her voice drained of all energy. "You blew up our _home_. You kidnapped our Professor. What more can you do to us?"

"Not much." She shrugged, a smug smile on her lips. "Seeing you crippled is enough. Anyway, it isn't about what _I _want. It's about what _Magneto_ wants, and you'll be seeing much more of him in the near future."

Scott's eyes narrowed, fists clenching so hard that his knuckles turned deathly pale. "Why you little—"

The wail of police sirens interrupted him, and the X-Men froze. The mutant secret was _out_, and Scott would bet his life that the police weren't going to arrive waving a white flag.

"Freeze! You're under arrest!"

Bobby and Jubilee glanced at each other, and Remy smirked. He could see where this was going.

"The pleasure's all mine." Bobby said cheerfully, executing a flamboyant bow. By the time he was standing up straight again, he was covered in blue-white ice.

Jubilee, however, tilted her head to the side as if she was thinking about it. Then she offered the policemen a broad grin. "No can do," she concluded, allowing her partner in crime to take her hand, pulling her along a newly fabricated ice slide. Fireworks spat from her fingertips, and more than one cop squeezed their eyes shut out of blindness and fright.

It was Remy, however, that thoroughly scared them. "Hank, Kitty, Jeannie? Y' get de _petites_ outta here. Cyke?" The two older boys turned to face each other, and Remy thought he saw a small smile gracing Scott's usually stick-up-the-ass expression. "Y' wanna show dem who dey're messin' wit'?"

"Sounds like a plan to me."

Remy reached for his cards; Scott's hands shot to his visor. "On t'ree now, _d'accord?_"

Scott nodded. "One."

"Two." Remy added, and pink flames rushed to engulf the card sandwiched between his fingers. All hell was going to break loose, and hopefully even their fearless leader would enjoy it.

Together, perfectly in sync, they spoke the last word: "Three."

* * *

_Beep…beep...beepbeepbeepbeepbeeeeeeeeeeeeep_

"Ah can't stand that stupid beeping noise." Rogue growled, less than happy that it had managed to wake her up. Piotr stared dumbly at the cords she had ripped from her body. The hung from their various scanners, as limp as wilted flower stems, and giving a sigh, he stood up to turn the screens off and stop the incessant whining.

When Rogue reached for her IV, however, Piotr's stomach turned. He had watched while she seized first the heart rate and brain activity cables, then the heat sensor, but this would involve blood, and he couldn't handle that this early in the morning.

"You should keep that one in," he insisted. "At least until you have eaten lunch."

Rogue rolled her eyes but allowed herself to smile, releasing her grip on the plastic tube. "Whatever yah say, Piotr, but lunch had better come pretty soon or the itching is going tah drive meh insane."

"Yes," he confirmed, nodding his head. "John was wanting to make it—" Rogue winced, and he hurried to add, "But it did not work out so good and he has ordered pizza."

Rogue breathed a sigh of relief. "Yah had meh worried for a second there," she admitted, stretching her arms above her head. "Gawd, how long have ah been out?"

"Only thirty-six hours, though after seeing the way that you destroyed the giant machine, I was expecting it to be longer. Your friend was thinking that you were lost to him."

Her brow furrowed in confusion. "What fr—Remy!"

Colossus nodded. "_Da_. He was saying that you should get in touch once everything has died down."

Rogue closed her eyes, breathing deeply to slow down her excited heart rate. She had found Remy again! Or rather, she had found out that she hadn't killed him, which cleared one of the inky black stains on her conscious that had haunted her for the last ten years.

Then her face fell. "But now that Mystique blew up their mansion—"

"—that could take a while," Piotr finished off, a smile tweaking at the edges of his mouth. Rogue sighed, flopping back down on the rickety bed.

"Maybe. Ah just hope he's okay. It's been so long…"

"He is looking like someone who is very good at taking care of himself," the Russian reassured her, sitting back down in his chair. "I am sure he will be fine."

Rogue took a deep breath. "Ah just wished he'd have left a phone number or something." There was a pause, and then she laughed. "Ah'm bein' so petty. At least ah know he's alive. That's something."

"It is normal to be frustrated when the situation is not under your control. Now that you know that he is alive you are wanting to return to how you were before."

"Things have changed," she mumbled, pulling her knees up to her chest. "The whole 'teams' thing is gonna get in the way a little bit."

At that moment, a shriek echoed through the warehouse. Both Acolytes nearly jumped out of their skins.

"Thank you, come again!" Pyro bellowed cheerfully, whooping as he crashed through the door bearing three pizza boxes. Rogue and Piotr just stared as he made himself comfortable on the floor and opened a box, drawing out a cheesy slice of pizza. It was only after he'd taken a huge mouthful, chewed, and swallowed that he looked up at the puzzled faces of his teammates. "The delivery boy wanted a tip," he explained, grinning. "Bloody cheek, oiy say. He won't be back."

"What did you _do_?" Rogue asked, curious. St. John snickered.

"Oiy might have set 'im on foire…." he admitted sheepishly. Piotr shook his head, shooting the heavens a mournful look and mouthing something that looked like _please let the poor man get to hospital in time._

"Here's your pizza," John informed Rogue, shaking the greasy box under her nose, which she wrinkled.

"That smells gross," she muttered, but took it anyway, flipping the lid open. "Eww, Pyro! You know ah don't like anchovies!"

John snatched the box from her, shoving his own into her hands. "Oiy thought moiyne tasted a bit bland." He proceeded to dig into the new pizza, shoving slices of fish-covered dough into his mouth. Rogue rolled her eyes.

"Yah're such a pig. Ah don't know why old Buckethead employs yah, anyway—"

"I think you will find, _Rogue,_ that the mutants that I pick for my team are chosen on the basis of power rather than eating habits," said a voice from the door, which swung open to reveal Magneto, and he didn't look happy. Rogue fell silent, eyes dropping to her lap.

"Good mornin', Mister Lensherr," she mumbled. Piotr stiffened, sensing that their boss was _not_ pleased, but Pyro just carried on eating until a metal tray flew across the room and hit him in the head. The Aussie shrieked, jumping two feet in the air and pinpointing the source of his pain. He crossed his arms.

"Oiy ain't gettin' paid to have you smack me in the head," he complained, rubbing his tender skull.

"Until you repay your debt to me, you will not be getting paid at all," Magneto replied smoothly. "And if you feel like paying your debt faster, I suggest you leave the room now. You too, Colossus."

Pyro scuttled out, but Piotr paused, glancing back at Rogue with a worried expression on his face. She smiled back, but it was a thin smile, and it didn't quell his fears.

"I am thinking that it would be better if I stayed," he said firmly, locking his gaze with Magneto's. The metal manipulator just stared back, features impassive, and spoke three words, so soft that Rogue almost didn't hear them.

"Remember your sister."

Piotr's shoulders sagged, and his eyes flicked from Magneto to Rogue. Her smile wavered, and he turned away, muttering something that sounded vaguely like "I am sorry."

The door slammed shut; Rogue looked at the other mutant in the room, biting her lip to ease the tension of the silence. Magneto was the one who broke it.

"You have disappointed me, Rogue."

She shifted on the bed, glad that the heart rate monitor wasn't connected—it would be beeping furiously.

"Can ah ask how?"

He moved to sit in the chair that Piotr had formerly occupied, and although he was half the size of the bulky Russian, his presence was much more intimidating.

"First you failed to absorb one X-Man; then you neglected to tell me that one of them had not been there. Now I find out that you have been consorting with the enemy and losing control of your powers inpublic." His voice was too threatening to be shrill, but it rose to a crescendo as his temper flared. Who could have told him? The name popped into her head and some of her fear switched to anger. _Ah'm going to kill Pietro with my bare hands._

"Do you think I _want _the X-Men to know of any weakness I might have?" he continued. "Your weakness is my weakness, and believe me, Rogue; making me look weak again will cost you dearly."

"Ah didn't—" she started, but he cut her off.

"Mean to?" He graced her with a thin-lipped smile, more sinister than comforting. "Maybe you should try harder." He stood, his cape swirling in an invisible breeze. "I suggest that you reject all contact with this little friend of yours—Remy LeBeau, I believe. Staying in touch will not bode well for him." He turned as if to leave, reaching the door before pausing at the threshold.

"It's a pity he is an X-Man; a man of his caliber would have been a perfect addition to my team."

The glass of water on her bedside table shattered; she didn't even remember whose power she had drawn on. "You will never get him," she hissed. He wouldn't be bound this _monster_. She wouldn't let it happen—wouldn't let him steal Remy's life away with his trickery and false promises.

Magneto chuckled, and the sound sent shivers up her spine. "I am afraid, Rogue," he said quietly, "That this is not your decision to make. It is mine, and I will do as I see fit. You will be up for training at six tomorrow."

The door clicked softly behind him; Rogue didn't notice, instead staring dumbly at the shattered glass beside her. She wouldn't let him. She _couldn't_ let Magneto bind up her last connection to her past in his deadly web, even if she had to kill him herself.

_Even if killin' him might kill meh in the process_, she thought grimly, flexing her fingers. But first, she would take the bucket head's advice and sever all ties—hopefully she was just a thing of the past for her friend, and he'd give up pretty quickly. No use unnecessarily adding another life to her murder count, however despicable the person was.

"_I missed y' too, chèrie… more den I can say."_

She sighed. Remy was just stupid enough to make things hard, and she had a feeling that things were not going to go according to plan.

* * *

_Sorry for the long wait—work just has to take priority sometimes. :( Hope you like this chapter, even though it was more about setting the scene than actual development! :)_

_Thanks for all the fab reviews! I'll try to update as soon as possible!_

_allyg1990_


	5. Chapter 5: Retaliation

_A/N: Alrighty, I've decided to put the French up here so y'all don't get confused along the way!_

**Vraiment?:** Really?

**Bien sur: **Of course

**Pardonnez-moi**: Excuse me

**Chaton**: Kitten

**J'espere que vous avez raison**** : **I hope you're right.

**Completement folle : **Completely crazy.

Okay, class is over. On to chapter five!

* * *

Remy LeBeau swore, realizing that he had used every single card in his only open pack. Sure, he had a few backups in his coat pockets, but unwrapping them would waste time which he could not afford to lose. He looked left, and right, squinting to stop himself being blinded by the popping fireworks and crouching down to avoid being accidentally hit by one. There were craters everywhere, the aftermath of charged cards and optic blasts alike, with only a few as the result of Cannonball's head crashing into the ground at a hundred miles per hour. With a sinking feeling, Remy realized that he was standing on the only patch of high ground in a sea of broken earth, with no ammunition and new police cars swarming in from all directions.

"Put your hands in the air and no-one gets hurt." Remy suppressed the urge to snort at the over-used line as he turned his attention to the policeman in the ditch behind him, his gun shaking in his hands.

"_Vraiment?_" He curled his fingers into the dirt, balling them into fists. The gun nearly fell out of the cop's hands, and Remy felt a sudden surge of pity for the officer. He wasn't really much older than the thief himself, and obviously inexperienced. Hopefully he'd only get a few burns.

"Do it." The man's voice quivered. "I'll shoot."

It was an empty threat—from the way the man was holding up under pressure, Remy doubted that he could shoot a rabbit, let alone a human being.

"_Bien sur, mon ami_," he replied evenly, lifting his arms above his head. Even wimps were prone to sudden fits of courage or duty, and it was probably better to play on the right side of the law for once. For a few minutes, anyway.

The cop lowered his gun, and the signs of relief were clear on his face—his shoulders sagged, his face lost its pinched, tense appearance, and he let go of a breath he'd been holding for a while. Remy smirked. _Coward._

"Now, that was easy, wasn't it? This doesn't have to be hard," the policeman gabbled. The words were more to reassure himself than Remy, who ducked his head in apology.

"'M sorry, _monsieur, _but it's goin' t' get a bit harder about now."

He flicked his wrists; his fists flew open, throwing neon pink dirt right at the cop's bemused face. There was a _boom_, and the man was on the floor, unconscious, burnt around the edges, but not seriously hurt. Remy stepped over the body, trudging through the powdered earth and surveying the situation. The mutants seemed to have the upper hand—Bobby and Jubilee were still fighting side by side, with the addition of Ray. Remy couldn't help but grin as Berzerker fired a crackling stream of electricity into a police car, making it blow up in a way that made him itch to pick up a card. Free from any immediate danger, he reached into his back pocket to pull out a pack, but the screech of tires startled him into whipping around, and he noticed the police car hurtling towards him with Kurt at the wheel.

"Watch out!" Thin arms crashed around his waist, and suddenly he was just as intangible as the girl touching him. They tumbled into the car, pretty much landing on Jean.

"Oof!"

"_Pardonnez-moi!_" Remy muttered when he realized that he was in a very compromising position with the two girls. Jean glared at him.

"As much as it kills me to say this, it probably wasn't your fault this time. _This time._"

Remy scooted as far away from them as he could in the cramped backseat and started to dust himself off. "What's de damage?"

"Shh." Kitty elbowed him and gestured to the redhead whose eyes were closed, fingers at her temples. "She's trying to concentrate."

Remy shut up and carried on rooting around for a pack of cards. By the time he had ripped the plastic wrapping off, Jean was finished with her telepathic conversation.

"Okay, the New Mutants made it into the forest, and Storm's got Scott. Everyone is accounted for, and it's time for us to get out of—"

"_Jean!_" Kurt's frantic voice interrupted her, and all three passengers realized that unless he was secretly a stunt driver, Kurt was never going to be able to avoid crashing into the police cars that were rapidly approaching their own. "Do somezing!"

Telekinesis twanged; the car lifted off the ground, and Remy grinned in appreciation. This car was flying just a few decades ahead of schedule.

There was silence in the vehicle, punctuated only by the labored breaths of their driver. _"Mein gott, _Jean! I thought zat ve vere going to be squished like pancakes!"

"So did I," Kitty confessed. "Thanks for totally saving our lives."

"Any time," Jean replied, offering them a weary smile. "What are teammates for?"

"Speakin' of teammates…" Remy ventured, "What are we goin' t' do 'bout Spyke?"

Jean sighed. "I can contact the others. We'll meet up tonight—maybe Scott and Storm have an idea of where to start looking."

Silence crept in again as the gravity of the situation weighed down on three of the teens. The reason for Remy's silence, however, was just that due to the lack of space, he felt more uncomfortable than he ever had been in such close proximity to two girls.

"Do y' mind if Remy climbs over y' into the front seat?"

Kitty sighed and nodded. Jean just scowled. "If you try to feel me up in the process, I'm throwing you out of the car."

"Wouldn't dream of it," he assured her, and began the treacherous journey to the land of more legroom.

* * *

"Peter, yah're bein' pathetic!" Rogue scoffed as she dodged another clumsy punch. "Ah ain't an invalid any more, and ah ain't made outta china. Goin' easy on meh isn't gonna help anyone."

Piotr ignored her, his fist whizzing lazily towards her head. Rogue ducked it with minimal effort. "It ain't goin' tah help Ilyana," she tried. Colossus gritted his teeth and snatched her wrists, twisting her upside down and switching his grip to her ankles faster than someone of his size rightly should have been able to.

"Pathetic?" he snapped. Rogue grinned.

"This is more like it," she conceded. Pyro just sulked in the corner.

"Why do oiy hafta do target practice while you get bash each other to bits?" he muttered. Rogue shot him a smirk, though her face was slowly turning purple.

"Old buckethead's given up on yah ever havin' any kinda finesse!" she taunted. Piotr had to smile, and she seized the little window of distraction to slug him in the stomach. It was more shock than pain that made the Russian giant stumble backwards and release his captive, who flipped neatly onto her feet.

"C'mon, Colossus! Make meh _try_!" she yelled, green eyes filled with mischief. Piotr grinned and momentarily forgot her comment about his sister, flexing his fingers as metal sprang from nowhere to coat them. Rogue groaned. "This is supposed tah be a no-powers session," she pointed out. Piotr shrugged.

"What can I say? I am needing everything I have to overpower you," he teased.

Rogue just brought her hands up to her face and neatly slid off a glove. "Do your worst," she commanded. Piotr nodded.

"_Da_, I will."

She darted forward; an iron clad palm shot out to press against her head, and no matter how fast she ran, she couldn't move an inch.

Pyro whooped with joy. "Rogue fell for the kiddie-trick!"

Rogue growled as she ducked down and threw herself onto the ground, sliding smoothly between Colossus's legs and standing up on the other side. She leapt onto his back, but he spun and tossed her off, so she twisted, barely managing to land on her feet. He lashed out; she dodged and lunged for his arm. He grinned, whipping it out of her way. "It will not be that easy," he promised. She bit her lip.

"Ah didn't think it would be," she retorted, and the cycle began again.

It wasn't long before the routine became boring, and that was when Rogue reached for a psyche. When he realized what she was up to, Piotr never faltered, but called out, "Choose a compliant one. You do not want to exert yourself very much."

_Ah'll have tah use Magneto_, Rogue thought sourly. Piotr was right; though she had long since recovered physically, her psychic blocks were still a little shabby. As much as she hated having the man in the forefront of her mind, he was easy to summon and didn't complain too much.

The familiar headache returned; metal warped, and Colossus went flying, soon pinned against the opposite wall. Now Rogue just walked up to him, stretching out her bare fingers so that they almost brushed his throat. "Give up?"

Piotr nodded, offering her a smile. "It does not look as if I am having very much choice."

She released her hold on him and pushed Magneto's psyche to the back of her mind. Then she stretched her arms above her head. "Ah'm gonna go have a shower. Havin' that jerk in mah head always makes me feel dirty."

Pyro skipped towards the door, eager as a child. "Thank the wallabies, oiy thought that would _never_ end." Rogue rolled her eyes and reached up to ruffle his already crazy hair.

"Yah always get the better end of the deal—it's not like yah actually do anythin'."

St. John smirked. "Don't say that so loud, sheila. The buckethead might hear ya."

Rogue left him alone in his fit of laughter, leaving the practice room in favor of her own. Perhaps the only perk of being one of Magneto's lackeys was the fact that she got her own bathroom, something that not even the X-Men could boast of. Hot water was essential to preserving what little sanity she had, and she never had anyone knocking on her door to demand when she would be getting out.

_Knock, knock._ She frowned. Well, she never _usually_ had people knocking on her door. She switched the water off, wincing as cold air seeped in through the cracks in the door and coated her skin like ice.

"What?" she yelled.

"The X-Men are on the news re-runs from last night. I thought you would be wanting to see it." There was Piotr's gentle, apologetic voice. She smiled.

"Thanks, Pete. Ah'll be out in a second."

She stepped into the cold, throwing on a bathrobe before walking out the bathroom. Not having much on didn't make her feel too uncomfortable when she was in the Acolyte base; Magneto was out, Piotr was too much of a gentleman to even notice, and Pyro just wasn't interested. All of them knew better than to get anywhere near her skin.

When she reached the living room, both of her teammates were huddled around the television, Piotr silent and thoughtful, Pyro sniggering at something she probably wouldn't find funny. She flopped onto a lone armchair, arranging the robe over her knees. "What's up?"

Piotr said nothing, but reached for the clicker and turned the volume up.

"_...police officers trying to peacefully apprehend the mutants at the now demolished Xavier Institute were met with violence…"_

"Peacefully apprehend? That doesn't even make sense!" Rogue protested, scooting her chair closer to get a better look.

"Rogue, isn't that your friend?" Pyro stabbed the television screen, and Rogue's stomach clenched. There was Remy, hands in the air, a police officer's gun pointed straight at him. Her heart beat wildly; what if he got hurt?

Pyro shrieked with laughter at what happened next; a cloud of kinetically charged dirt showered the cop, knocking him unconscious.

"That was bloomin' _brilliant_!" the Aussie choked out. "_Brilliant!_"

Rogue allowed herself a small smile. Yes, Remy could certainly take care of himself.

"I bet _I_ could do better." Rogue froze at the snide voice, her smile disintegrating into a scowl. _Pietro._

"Really?" she drawled, never taking her eyes away from the screen. "Ah would have thought that yah'd have zoomed off to Timbuktu by the time the cops arrived."

He was right behind her now, his breath hot in her ear. She flinched. "I wouldn't be stupid enough to let a cop get within ten feet of me. Not like your loverboy, huh?"

Rogue stifled a groan. Pietro _would_ come to that conclusion, what with his one-track mind and all. "Try best friend, loser. Yah might also want to look up the definitions of 'coward' and 'brave'. Oh, wait, ah forgot—yah can't read."

Pietro zipped around to the wall in front of her, leaning against it with a lazy expression on his face. "Not your boyfriend? Well, more for me, I guess."

Rogue shot him a glare. "Lahke ah'd ever get _near_ a tattle-tale like _you_. You told your father about Remy."

Pietro shrugged. "Hey, it's not my fault you haven't got a dad to play helper to. Maybe you wouldn't be so bitter if you did."

Something exploded inside her; she reached for the first psyche she could grab from behind the wall. A fizzing bolt of electrical energy shot from her hands and barely missed the speed demon. "Shut your mouth!" she spat. "At least mah dad ain't a murderin' scumbag!"

Pietro leered at her. "At least I know who my dad is," he said softly.

It was the last straw. She jumped to her feet and slowly stalked towards the offending blot on humanity, electricity sparking around her tightly clenched fists and crackling in her two-toned hair. Piotr realized that her eyes had shifted to electric blue orbs with a sick feeling growing in his stomach. Who was she channeling this time?

"Get out. _Now_. Or ah'll make you!" Rogue hissed. Pietro raised his hands in defeat.

"No need. I've got a date to get to. Maybe you should try that sometime. It might help you loosen up. Oh, wait—you can't touch, so no guy would want you. My bad." With that, he was gone, and there was silence in the room. Even Pyro had the decency to quit sniggering, at least until the fire died from Rogue's eyes.

"You did not know your father?" Piotr asked at last, his tone careful yet curious. Rogue sighed, and shook her head.

"Mama always told meh that she'd tell meh when ah got bigger. But then ah—" she paused, reconsidered her choice of words. "She died."

"I am sorry," Colossus said after a moment, truly sympathetic. Rogue smiled.

"It's no big deal. Lots of people grow up with just one parent these days."

The silence grew slowly awkward, and Rogue quickly turned away from the staring Acolytes.

"Ah—ah'm going to finish mah shower before the buckethead gets back. Ah'll see y'all at lunch." With that she hurried away, back to hot water and oblivion, away from the memories that wouldn't stop haunting her.

* * *

"_Oww!_" The Cajun in question spun around, squinting to make out the figure behind him in the forest.

"_Chaton_?"

"Yeah." The sound was muffled, and Remy squinted, realizing that the petite brunette had managed to trip over something. He sighed, picking up the pace and briskly walking over to her. He squatted down, placing his hands firmly on her shoulders and pulling her into a sitting position.

"Are y' okay?"

She nodded. "I don't think it'll even bruise. Geez, I'm so clumsy sometimes." She tried to move, but couldn't, realizing that one foot was tangled up in some sort of vine. "Hang on, I'll just–"

Remy grinned. "Allow me, _p'tite_." He placed his bare fingers on the offending vine. It sizzled faintly pink, then fell apart onto the forest floor. Kitty suppressed the urge to whistle.

"That's pretty cool."

Gambit grinned. "One of m' new party tricks," he explained. They started walking again in an effort to catch up to Jean and Kurt.

"You know," Kitty mused, contemplating his 'party trick', "You've really like, _improved_ in the last year or so. I mean, I remember when you used to like, blow up everything you touched, and now you're just making things…disintegrate."

A faint smile graced the thief's lips. "Control's a wonderful t'ing, _non_?"

Kitty grinned. "Yeah, it really is. Not falling through my bed anymore has its perks."

He chuckled. "_Oui_, I c'n understand how dat might be a good t'ing."

The only audible sound was the crunch of leaves under Kitty's feet; for someone who regularly went intangible, the _fille_ was klutzy.

"How did your powers manifest?" the phaser asked curiously. "I mean, I like, fell through the bed, but I bet your story is way more dramatic."

His features hardened. "I charged up a picture frame."

"Why?" Kitty probed. Gambit resisted the urge to roll his eyes as the phrase _'curiosity killed the cat'_ sprang to mind.

"I was seventeen," he said evenly. "I got real emotional."

Kitty stayed silent for a short moment, turning his words over in her mind.

"Was it a picture of her?" she asked quietly. He swallowed hard, a hand tightening around his stomach.

"Of us," he explained. Kitty nodded wisely, peering up at him in the darkness.

"You guys really _were_ close, weren't you?"

He nodded. "She was de firs' person who looked beyond de eyes." Then he laughed, a short, barking sound. "Can't believe 'm gushing out m' sob story t' a _fille_ I ain't interested in charmin'."

Kitty offered him a mock pout, eyes sparkling with humor. "Are you saying I'm not the Gambit type?"

He grinned. "Nah. Y' far too easy t' talk t'."

Kitty brightened at this. "Wow, really? That's totally cool because…"

Remy sighed as she startled rambling on again. The girl had her sensitive moments and all, but _dieu,_ she could talk!

"C'mon and live up to y' name. We supposed t' be sneakin'."

"Oh, right, sorry!" Shadowcat gabbled. "I'll be like, totally quiet now."

Remy couldn't help but smile at that. "_J'espere que vous avez raison_," he mumbled under his breath. Kitty's head whipped around.

"What was that?" she asked, seemingly desperate for human interaction. Remy waved her away.

"Not'in, not'in…"

Within a few moments, they had caught up to Jean and Kurt, who were standing in a small, moonlit clearing. "Any sign of de ot'ers?" Remy asked softly. Jean grinned.

"Scott and Storm on their way," she informed him. "Ray has taken the New Mutants to stay with some friends of his until things die down. They're too young to get involved in all of this…" Her face fell. "To be honest, so are we, but…"

"We are de X-Men, and hafta go 'round savin' de world, and wearin' spandex t' boot, _non_?" Remy teased.

"Well, Gambit, it seems like you have finally tapped into our philosophy," remarked a calm voice, and Storm slowly touched down to the ground, setting Scott down beside her. Remy plastered a look of false joy across his face.

"_Oui,_ an' it only took a year. 'S a fantastic achievement fo' a t'ief like _moi_, _non_?"

"Save it, Gambit. We have people to rescue." Scott straightened his uniform, dusting off imaginary dirt particles. Remy shrugged.

"Might as well make de best of a bad situation," he muttered. "Not all of us got dat precious stick up our a—"

Kitty elbowed him. "I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you," she warned.

"Guys," Jean interrupted, her voice urgent. "We've got company."

"That took you long enough." Mystique's sly words filtered into the clearing as she stalked out of the forest, followed by Avalanche, Toad, and the Scarlet Witch. "My, my, Xavier's absence must really have hit you hard."

"How can you show your face after what you've done?" Jean hissed, taking a step forward. "It's your fault we're in this _mess_."

Mystique shook her head. "I was not part of Magneto's plan to expose you as mutants—that was an unfortunate side effect."

"An _unfortunate side effect_?" Remy stared. "De _femme_'s _completement folle_."

"It just goes to show that Xavier's little harebrained ideals of human-mutant peace will never become reality, doesn't it?" she sneered.

"What do you want, Mystique?" Scott asked, his tone icy. Mystique folded her arms across her chest.

"I want my team member back, just the same as you do. I was hoping that you would know where to start looking."

"We don't." Jean said curtly, and there was a short moment of silence in the clearing.

"We do," said a voice, and the mutants spun around, moved back-to-back towards the center of the clearing, away from the armed soldiers that suddenly surrounded them. Remy's hands went to his pockets, and Scott's went to his visor; Kitty turned everyone she was touching intangible, but it would be no use. Mutant powers were all well and good, but unprepared, they were useless against machinery. In the time it would take for Jean to construct a telekinetic shield, they could all be mowed down.

A grey haired man with a distinctive eye patch stepped out of the ring of soldiers, his expression grim. The two teams stiffened and unconsciously huddled closer together, regardless of what side they were on. This wasn't a question of brotherhood against the X-Men—it was humans against mutants now, and their lives could be on the line.

"Who are you?" Mystique growled. The corners of the man's mouth turned up in a dangerous smile.

"I'm Nick Fury—from SHIELD."

* * *

_9.5 pages—not too shabby, if I say so myself! Hopefully updates will come faster now that the winter holidays are upon us, thank you for waiting patiently. I'd like to thank each and every one of you for your fantabulous reviews—they really, truly make my day. A big thank you to everyone who has added this story to their favorites or to their author alert, each of those alert emails is a real warm fuzzy. As a…err… winter holiday present, I'd love to know what you guys most like and most dislike about this story. That way, I can tweak future chapters so that there's more of what you like (plot allowing, _bien sur!_) and less of what you don't. _

_Happy holidays!_

_Allyg1990_


	6. Chapter 6: Recapture

"SHIELD," Scott muttered to himself. The whole group turned to stare at him as he relaxed, and straightened up. "Logan told me about them. They're a government agency—like a super CIA."

Fury made an attempt at a friendly grin, but it came out as more of a scowl. "So you know about us. That's funny, because I know all about you." He raised a hand and pointed at Cyclops. "Scott Summers. You have the mutant power to fire optic blasts. Your parents died in a plane crash which you survived, along with a younger brother, Alex, who you recently discovered was still alive."

Scott's eyes widened, and he took a step back. "H—how do you know all that?"

Fury shot him a sly look. "We have our ways," he said vaguely. His finger swerved, ending up in front of Storm. "Ororo Munroe. You were orphaned when a building collapsed on your parents in Cairo. You suffer from severe claustrophobia and can manipulate the weather."

Storm just bowed her head. Remy smirked.

"What do y' know about Gambit?" he asked casually, looking forward to the answer.

Fury's eyes met Remy's red-on-black ones; his face twisted into a frown, and he stared, as if he was searching for something.

"Remy Etienne LeBeau," he said at last, the words rolling lethargically off his tongue in a very American accent. "You have the ability to kinetically charge matter. We suspect you have ties to the New Orleans thieves guild."

Remy grinned at the lack of information and offered the older man a deep bow. "_Mon pere_'ll be glad to hear dat," he informed him. Fury did not smile, and shifted his attention to the rest of the group.

"You are looking for three of your teammates who were apprehended by the United States government. I can help you find them."

"Why would you?" Mystique spat, her blue fists clenched. "Is this some kind of trick?"

Fury took his time in shaking his head, as if he wasn't sure himself. "I have my reasons," he stated. "Although I can't get involved officially, I can give you this. The co-ordinates on there are where your friends are being held." He offered a small metal device, which Storm gingerly accepted.

"Thank you," she murmured, obviously surprised. Fury nodded and backed away, and within seconds, he and his troops had completely disappeared.

"Well, that was weird," Wanda muttered, her brow furrowed in confusion. Storm copied her expression.

"Yes…" Then she straightened, stepping back into the clothing of a team leader. "X-Men, we will split into two groups. Jean, you will—"

Before she could continue, Mystique leapt forward and snatched the little device from Storm's hands faster than the silver-haired woman could blink. "I'll handle this," she snapped, tucking the item away in her clothing. Storm clenched her fists, and Remy watched with interest as a familiar milky film crept over her eyes—thunder cracked, and forks of lightning spiraled across the pitch black sky. _Dis could get interestin'_.

"You _dare_!" Ororo snarled, drawing herself up to her full height. Mystique folded her arms across her chest and shifted her weight to one leg.

"If you want to see your nephew and your professor again, you'll back _off_." Her voice was soft, her tone dangerous—and it made her even more intimidating.

When Remy glanced at the former goddess again, her eyes had returned to their unusual sky blue. _S' a pity dat she cares so much 'bout Evan,_ he thought to himself, half-joking. _Dis could have been an entertainin' fight._ Not to mention the fact that he was itching to get a few hits in on Mystique—first of all for destroying the institute, and secondly for being a pretty pitiful foster-mother to Anna. She must have been, if the _fille_ was somehow bound to Magneto. The shapeshifter deserved to have a card or two blow up in her face.

"Fine," Storm growled, letting her fingers relax. "I will let you take charge—this time. This is your only chance, Mystique. Do not make me regret my decision."

Mystique just shot the weather witch a derisive glance and turned to face the rest of the small crowd. Lance cleared his throat in an awkward manner.

"So, where's Blob being held?"

Mystique pulled out the device, and a sly smile curled at the edges of her lips as she scanned the greenish symbols on the screen. "Area 51."

* * *

A few hours later, they were in the Velocity. Remy was sulking in the corner, mainly because he hadn't been allowed to assist in the abduction of the vehicle. It was supposed to be a stealthy operation, and while Remy was very good at sneaking in and out of houses, he was not very good at sneaking into military institutions and stealing huge planes without anyone noticing. That was more Jean's specialty, due to her telekinesis.

He was also less than happy with the fact that he was seated next to Mystique. The woman got on his nerves; she was almost completely silent and still, though every so often he caught her sneaking glances at Kurt, who was just as pensive in the opposite corner of the helicopter.

After a few of these silent exchanges, Remy shot her a pointed glare. It wasn't fair on Kurt, being watched. The poor kid had enough on his mind without the thought of a renewed bond with his terrorist mother.

When she saw his expression, she pasted a saccharine smile on her lips. "Remy, isn't it?"

Remy responded with a gruff nod, shuffling the pack of cards in his hands. "_Oui._"

Mystique's smile became somewhat genuine, as if she was rejoicing in the opportunity to goad someone. "I take it you're familiar with my Rogue?"

The cards fell to a stop, and he gritted his teeth. "She ain't yours."

Mystique shrugged. "I have always thought of her as my acquisition—and the recent years have proven her to be a worthwhile investment. It's just a shame she can't touch yet. It would be so much more convenient."

Remy swallowed hard, and turned his face away from the woman, sick to his stomach and fully aware of the fact that if he was looking at her, he would be tempted to punch her, hard. "So dat's all she is t' y'? A wort'while investment?"

"She never gave me a reason to feel otherwise." He only heard her voice, but he could picture the frown that went along with it. "I have a feeling she isn't altogether very fond of me."

Remy snorted. "Y' t'ink?"

When Mystique's voice regained its sly undertone, he knew he had to be on his guard. "I assume you have a… _better_ relationship with her."

Remy took a deep breath, struggling to keep his voice even. "What's it t' y'?"

"Well," Mystique mused, "You have the potential to become extremely powerful, and the more power the parents possess, the greater the power of their child…"

"First of all, y' one _sick_ woman," Remy interrupted flatly. "And second of all, we ain't got dat kind of relationship."

Mystique grinned. "People are easy to manipulate. You'd be surprised."

The thief shook his head in disgust, and strode over to the other side of the plane, buckling himself up next to Kurt. He hated people who jumped to conclusions—he didn't understand why they always thought that his relationship with Anna was beyond the 'just friends' stage. Why was it so hard for everyone else to accept it?

"Are you alright?" Kurt mumbled, his tone cautious. Remy shook his head.

"Remy hates t' be offensive, but y' mot'er's a psychopath."

Kurt offered him a wry grin. "_Ja_. Hopefully I didn't get zose genes."

The Cajun forced a laugh. "Remy don't t'ink y' could ever be a psycho. Y' like cheeseburgers too much."

"We're coming into land," Ororo called out, and Remy breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, the rescue mission could begin, and he would have a chance to cause some destruction. It took all the control he had to stop his excess energy leaking out through his skin and charging up the plane—his fingers itched, just like they always did in the days when he had no control.

"Hey, Remy." He heard Kurt's worried voice. "Are you having a nicotine craving or somezing? Your fingers are shaking."

Remy shot the boy a false grin. "Somet'in' like dat." To say he had a craving for destruction would probably make Kurt think that _he_ was the psychopath.

The helicopter settled onto a patch of tarmac far from where their friends were being held; as soon as her feet were on the ground, Mystique shifted, her body warping into that of a small black bird.

"It's a raven," Kurt said softly, watching his mother fly towards the distant patch of buildings. Remy gave him an odd look; he replied with a weak smile. "Zat's her name, you know. Raven Darkholme."

"Ah," Remy replied, fidgeting uncomfortably. What else could he have said in that position—"Oh, that's nice?"

A moment later Jean's fingers flew to her temples, and her eyes closed. The others stared curiously at her as she nodded, clearly involved in a silent conversation.

"Are we ready to go?" Scott asked, his impatience made clear by his constant fidgeting.

Jean turned to him as she opened her eyes. "Uh-huh. Mystique's disabled the fence sensors."

Wordless, Kurt laid a three fingered hand on both Remy and Kitty's shoulders, and they disappeared, only to be replaced by a puff of sulfurous smoke. When he had deposited his passengers on the other side of the fence, Kurt teleported away to pick up a few more, leaving Kitty and Remy to accomplish their mini-mission alone.

"So we're disabling the alarms?" Kitty stage whispered, and Remy rolled his eyes. So much for being inconspicuous.

"_Oui, chaton_," he hissed, and ducked behind a wall as a guard came into sight. "C'mon, phase us t'rough—dere's de back of an air conditionin' outlet here, probably coolin' electronics inside."

"Here we go," Kitty blabbered nervously, grabbing onto Remy's sleeve. He grinned. The poor _fille_ probably didn't have much experience with breaking and entering into military institutions, not that she had any reason to worry—after all, she _was_ the intangible one.

Suddenly she yanked on his arm, _hard, _sending them tumbling right into the building—and onto the floor of the room they had landed in, which caused them to break through the little red laser lights that were crossed all over the ground. Alarms blared, and Remy groaned. What a way to ruin his reputation as a good thief!

"Oh no!" Kitty gasped. "Sorry!"

Remy leapt to his feet, making his way to the little metal box labeled 'Security'. He tried yanking it open, but the hinges were rusty and it wouldn't budge.

"I hear footsteps!" Kitty hissed, and he sighed. He had wanted to do this the smooth way, but sometimes cruder methods were necessary.

"Stand back," he warned, drawing a single playing card from his pockets. As soon as it touched his skin, it glowed a furious fuchsia, and he rammed under the lid of the metal box. He turned to back away, but noticed that Shadowcat was still staring dumbly at the time bomb, seemingly confused.

"Get down!" he hissed, throwing himself at her and knocking her to the ground as a loud _boom_ sounded behind them. By the time he had helped her to her feet again, the alarms had stopped, the entirety of the security system blown to pieces.

"Thanks," Kitty whispered, her relief clear in her voice. Remy, however, knew better than to be relieved. The blaring of the alarms had definitely alerted the human security to their position, and they weren't going to be safe for very much longer.

Right on cue, static growled in his earpiece, Scott's less than pleased voice crackling through.

"What was that, _Gambit_?!" He shrieked. Remy winced and shot a glare at Kitty.

"Next time y' have him do de breakin' and enterin', Remy wants de blue boy!" he hissed, and when their fearless leader just kept gabbling at him, he yanked the device out of his ear and slipped it into a pocket. Kitty gave him a disapproving look, but the thief shrugged.

"Y've still got yours, _non_? I jus' can't stand that boy scout shoutin' orders in m' ear. B'sides, we a team, we only need one earpiece between de two of us."

"Freeze!"

Both heads whipped towards the door, which had been kicked down to reveal two burly security guards hauling heavy weaponry.

Remy groaned. This was really not a good day for him.

"One_,_" he muttered under his breath, just loud enough for Kitty to hear. "Two, t'ree…"

The valley girl leapt at him, turning intangible as her fingers wrapped around his arm, narrowly saving both of them from the bullets that whizzed right through their ghostly bodies.

"Now, Remy!"

His fingers delved into deep pockets and drew out a wad of playing cards. Within seconds they blazed with kinetic fire, and by the time he took his next breath, the guards were immobile on the floor.

"That was close," the phaser squeaked, and Remy turned to look at her. Her chest rose and fell in a quick-paced pattern, her cheeks were flushed and her perfect ponytail mussed. In short, he noticed, Kitty Pryde was scared.

It made sense. However much the X-Men insisted that they were professionals, they were all still children, in one way or another. They had never been up against a serious threat before—Magneto, for all his bells and whistles, was too intent on preserving mutant kind to do his 'enemies' much harm. Going from a pseudo attacker to deadly bullets in a matter of days couldn't be easy for the teens, least of all innocent little Katherine Pryde.

It was different for Remy—guild life had left him far from naïve, and out of all the X-Teens, he was probably the only one for which the new violence against them would not come as a shock. Growing up with master thieves and cutthroat killers alike had prepared him for this moment, and he would need his wits about him more than ever.

He scratched his head, somewhat guilty that he'd been mad at Kitty. It wasn't her fault that she had been spooked; he remembered a time when he had been the same—when it had finally sunk into his five year old head that the older street kids weren't afraid to use the knives they had strapped to their belts. It took years until he felt safe again, and that was only after his adoptive father had given him weaponry of his own. Kitty had it much, much simpler.

"Y' were fine, _p'tit,_" he drawled, hoping he sounded appropriately nonchalant as he dropped a hand onto her shoulder. "Start dat phasin' t'ing of yours, and not'in' can touch y'."

"If I phase in time," she mumbled. He grinned.

"Y' did good a few minutes ago," he noted. A smile tweaked at the corners of her mouth.

"So this wasn't a totally failed entry?" she asked, somewhat hopeful.

"Seein' as we both still alive… I s'ppose so," he quipped.

Kitty pulled a face. "That's like, _so _morbid." Then her expression turned somber, "Come on. We've got some friends to rescue."

Remy nodded, and a cheeky smile commandeered his face as he took a deep bow. "After y', _Madamoiselle._"

Kitty rolled her eyes and stepped over the rubble that was the door. "You know, it's totally obvious that you don't mean anything when you try to charm us like that. I saw how you acted with your…um, _friend._" She shot him a smile. "You're _way_ more sincere."

"_Quoi?_"

But she had swept out of the room, leaving him alone to puzzle over what exactly she had meant.

* * *

To say Wolverine was irritated would be a massive understatement. The short, burly Canadian was on the verge of blowing a gasket. He told himself that it was because the X-Men were taking so long get their behinds off of their chairs and come to rescue him, but a niggling part of his mind knew that it was because of his current situation. It had been years since he had been this helpless, and it wasn't a feeling that he particularly enjoyed. When alarm bells started to ring and the group of men interrogating him rushed away, he let go of the breath he had been holding. Finally.

It took less than a moment to catch Spyke's eye, and within a few seconds the young mutant's trademark spikes went flying through the small holes in his containment cell, quickly shattering Logan's restraints. He leapt to his feet, pausing to savor his newfound freedom for a brief moment before running over to slice Evan out of his cage. It was only then that he turned to the brotherhood boy who had been captured alongside them, but by that time Blob had broken out of the green rock that had trapped him.

"Come on porcupine," Logan grunted, "Let's—" A loud _bamf_ cut him off, and when he turned to face the familiar blue fuzz ball, he nearly had an apoplectic fit.

"What is _she_ doing here?" he growled. Mystique rolled her eyes.

"He'll send you a memo—we need to _go_!"

They took off down the set of twisted corridors at full tilt, Blob thundering along behind them. It didn't take long for them to find the rest of the X-Men; after all, where there was smoke, there was fire, where there was fire, there was probably an explosion, and where there was an explosion, there was Gumbo.

"They've closed off all the exits!" Jean shouted when she caught sight of her instructor.

"I'm just gonna have to make an exit," Wolverine snarled, but Remy stepped in front of him before he could reach the walls.

"Don' slice t'rough anyt'in'—gas pipes in the walls." He explained.

"There's a hatch right here!" Kitty yelled as she pointed to the ceiling. Kurt was there in a puff of smoke, but his desperate attempts at opening the door proved to be futile.

"It eez locked!" he cried. The X-Men groaned; Remy grinned.

"'Port Remy up, blue-boy," he commanded. Kurt dropped to the floor with athletic grace, and they were on the ceiling as soon as he touched the Cajun. Remy reached into his pocket for a pick, and within seconds, the hatch swung open and a ladder slid down to the ground.

The first thing Remy saw as the cold night air hit his face was the Velocity hovering just in front of him.

"Climb aboard!" Storm yelled over the racket, and he obeyed. Soon the whole team was on the helicopter with the exception of Scott—and Mystique.

Remy watched their heated dialogue with interest through the window, thought their words were lost in the blaring of the engine. He caught Scott slamming the metal door down on Mystique's head, and gave an internal cheer. The _femme_ deserved to be locked up, and a military institution was probably the best place to contain her.

The entire team looked up as Scott hopped onto the plane, rumpled and weary. If the door hadn't clicked shut behind him, he would have been thrown onto tarmac by Lance's punch to the face.

"What did you go and do _that_ for?" the rock tumbler demanded. Scott scowled as he rubbed his nose.

"She wouldn't tell me where the Professor was," he mumbled. Lance stared.

"So you locked her in with those _murderers_?" he demanded.

"She'll get out," Jean murmured, her voice barely audible. "It'll take more than the government to keep her in."

"Lance, Scott, please sit down and fasten your seatbelts," Hank reminded them, his voice kind but firm. "You are currently a danger to yourselves and to others."

Embarrassed, the two boys buckled themselves in. Lance plopped down next to Kitty, who shot him a smile, and Scott slid in next to Remy.

"Y' okay?" the thief asked. Scott exhaled heavily, slumping in his chair.

"I just can't help thinking that I did the wrong thing."

Remy grinned, giving his teammate a half reassuring, half patronizing pat on the shoulder. "Trust me, Scooter. Dat's 'bout de only t'ing y've ever done dat I've agreed with."

Scott responded with a wry smile, unsure of whether to be offended or pleased. "Thank you," he said at last. "…I think."

"'S not'in'," Remy demurred, finished with his act of charity for the day.

"We will be landing in approximately two hours," Beast called out. "I suggest you all grab a blanket from the overhead compartment and try to sleep." Hesitant, he added, "Well done."

"We have a new world to deal with now." That was Storm's voice, Remy decided; he was almost too tired to tell. "The journey will be hard, but we must try to teach humanity that we are not the enemy—before it is too late."

* * *

_How's that for a teensy bit of action? Hope y'all enjoyed that, and I'm sorry for the slow update. Unfortunately it's going downhill from here, due to work pressure. :(_

_Thanks for all the lovely reviews! Keep 'em coming, they're great motivation!!_

_Until next time,_

_allyg1990_


	7. Chapter 7: Redundant

_**A/N: I am **_**so**_** sorry that this took so long. Life caught up, but it's a bit longer than usual to compensate (14 pages on word!). I'll try not to be so delayed again, but unfortunately it's going to be a tough, hardworking year for me, and the weather forecast is looking grim.**_

_**Before we start, a small request: Could everyone read this with a critical eye and watch out for bits that could be improved? Style wise, word-choice wise, plot-wise, anything goes. Although I shriek with joy (metaphorically of course… *cough*) whenever I get a happy review in my inbox, I cherish the constructive criticism too! **_

_**This chapter is dedicated to sophiesayshi, as it was her birthday a few days ago! Happy birthday! *huggles***_

_******_

'…_some families refuse to step out of their homes because of the mutant menace…'_

"Cowards," Remy muttered under his breath, grabbing a can of green beans and throwing it into his shopping basket. He might have been sent to buy supplies—with _Wolverine_ of all people—but it didn't mean that he had to listen to this rubbish.

"Hey, _monsieur_!" he called, raising his voice. "Can y' turn de TV off? It's getting on m' nerves."

The shopkeeper shot him a suspicious look, eyes traveling from his muddy boots to the sunglasses perched on his nose. "What? You one of them dirty muties or something?"

Remy gritted his teeth. "Actually—"

A hand on his shoulder silenced him. "Calm down, bub," Logan growled, just loud enough for Remy to hear. "We're _tryin_' to keep a low profile."

The Cajun cleared his throat before addressing the cashier. "Actually, I got dis major headache. De noise ain't really helpin' so much."

The man behind the counter didn't drop his suspicious look, but he reached for the remote control. "The TV stays on, but I can turn it down if that'll help."

Remy nodded. "_Merci._"

"What?"

"T'anks." His eyes flicked to the screen as the sound started to recede, until he could barely hear a thing. That was when Jean's face—Scott's face—_Anna's face_!—his face—flashed across the screen in a matter of seconds. The photos of Jean and Scott seemed to be standard school editions, but both his and Anna's were from the Sentinel fight. He grimaced, wondering if she'd woken up yet. Probably, knowing her—she was a real fighter and hated being cooped up in bed, conscious or not.

"'M not sure dat picture does me justice," he drawled lazily in Wolverine's direction. "I t'ink I prefer m' side profile."

"Pipe down, Gumbo," was the older man's only reply. Then, "Is she that friend of yours? One of Magneto's goons?"

Although Anna being described as a goon did not make him particularly happy, he felt generous enough to reply. "_Oui._"

"Okay." Logan grabbed a carton of milk. "I'd tell ya to quit worryin', but seeing you nervous is too entertainin'."

"Ha. Ha. Ha," Remy muttered, snatching the milk away from Wolverine and dumping it in his basket. "Remy t'inks dat's 'bout it."

If the teacher noticed his sudden relapse into third person, he didn't mention it. "Yeah. Go start gettin' everythin' rung up, I'm gonna grab a beer."

"Great role model y' are," Remy mumbled, and dragged the basket over to the checkout. The cashier frowned, but reached for the first item anyway.

"Sunglasses inside?" he remarked skeptically.

Remy shrugged. "I got sensitive eyes," he shot back.

The cashier didn't respond, and Remy let his eyes wander to the TV. It was Wolverine who was on the screen now, caught on camera while he sprinted through the hallways of the military base in Area 51.

This was, of course, the perfect time for the door to the shop to swing open and a group of soldiers to walk in. Remy glanced at Logan—he had stiffened, one hand wrapped tightly around the neck of an open bottle of beer as he lifted the other to the brim of his cowboy hat and yanked it down over his eyes. The action caught the attention of the soldier in charge, who took a step toward the Canadian mutant.

"Hey, you!" he barked, clearly suspicious. "Take off the hat so we can see your face."

"I don't think ya want me to do that, bub," Wolverine said softly, never moving.

"I think you'll find that I want it very much," the soldier snapped, and he turned to Remy. "You too, shades. Off with the glasses."

Remy glanced at Logan. "Did he jus' call Remy _shades_?"

The older man grinned. "He sure did."

Remy slipped his fingers into his coat pocket and closed them around a single laminated card. "Remy knows y' didn't mean it de way it came across," he told the soldier, his tone apologetic, "But Remy _really_ don' like people insinuatin' dat he's a boy scout."

"Huh?"

Bang.

It took Remy all of two seconds to launch the missile at the unsuspecting private, duck the bullets the man had fired and throw himself onto the ground. It took a few seconds for the smoke to clear, but by then the two X-Men were crouched behind a row of shelves. There was silence; then it came, a soft creak on the wooden floorboards. The sound might have been inaudible to normal human ears, but Logan heard it loud and clear, and he caught Remy's eye, holding up three fingers to signal to his teammate. _Three, two, one…_

Logan's hand shot out into the aisle, slamming the glass bottle he was holding straight into an unfortunate soldier's groin. Beer sloshed everywhere; a few droplets splattered onto Remy's face. He started to wipe them off with a sleeve when the attacked soldier collapsed onto the floor in front of him, prompting him to punch the poor guy in the side of the head. Wolverine shot him a glare.

"He was down. Don't waste your breath finishin' off _my_ targets."

Remy replied with a cheeky grin. "No harm in checkin', right?"

"Watch out!"

Three silver bullets whistled as they grazed past Remy's ears and hit the back wall of the store with a dull thud. The thief winced, sparing only a moment's glance for the deep dents in the wood before he ducked lower. A no-powers run was obviously not going to work.

After shooting a meaningful look at Wolverine, he slid his hands up to the top of the shelf in front of him and let bare fingers graze the canned carrots stacked there. He pushed them before the soldiers could catch sight of the magenta glow through the smoke, and they fell to the floor with a crash, rolling towards the soldiers who didn't even notice until the cans promptly exploded and thrust them through the air.

Wolverine listened patiently for a few seconds before getting to his feet. "They're all out for the count. Let's go before their backup arrives."

Remy nodded, and the two were halfway out the door when he caught sight of the motorcycle he had…acquired. At some point during the fight—probably when the carrot cans had exploded—the front windows of the store had been blown out and left shattered glass all over his perfectly parked prize. It would take hours to fish out all the little bits of glass, but they didn't have hours.

By the looks of the helicopter coming in overhead, they didn't even have minutes. All that was left was Logan's prize motorcycle, and the instructor already had the key in the ignition. Remy stared in horror at the meager slice of leather seat behind the man, who turned around and noticed the predicament they had on their hands. Wolverine paled visibly at the thought of being up close and personal with _Gambit,_ but he decided to swallow his pride and face the situation like the man he was.

"Gumbo?"

Remy's voice quivered. "_Oui_?"

"Hop on."

***

Half an hour and a minor battle later, Remy was sitting in the Velocity again, nursing a slashed arm. Kitty had already fixed him up with a proper bandage, but the exaggerated cut still stung from the smelly salve she had smeared on his wound. He sat, silently cursing whichever of the helicopter pilots had been firing bullets. At least he hadn't actually received a bullet wound—his exposed arm had just been sliced by a jagged piece of rock that had been shot off the wall of the cave the other x-men had been hiding in when Remy and Logan turned up at the scene.

The thief winced. That had been possibly the worst motorcycle ride of his life. Being squished up against Wolverine was _not_ the most pleasant experience, and he would rather have died than have to repeat it. Luckily he had managed to throw himself off of the bike soon after they pulled up in front of the X-Men's hideout and no-one had witnessed the horrific event. Unfortunately, the helicopters had been right behind them, and it hadn't taken more than a minute for them to start firing at the band of mutants.

Wolverine had scuttled off at that point—something about not being allowed to tear their attackers to shreds. Scott, of course, had given the short instructor a pompous 'We're X-Men, and y'know what? We're good!' speech, so Remy didn't really blame the wolf-_homme_ for leaving. He would have too, if he had still had a motorcycle. Unfortunately, the only method of transport open to him was the Velocity, and if he wanted to avoid being shot, it was a pretty good idea to accept the offer.

Jean was currently crouched at the front of the helicopter fiddling with the miniature television, and Remy bit back a comment about how the action pulled the spandex she was wearing tighter in certain places. Their fearless leader looked about fit to burst, and while Remy had no problem dodging optic blasts, the plane would not have been so lucky.

Suddenly the redhead gasped, and everyone craned their necks to see what it was that she had seen to prompt the reaction.

"Scott! It's—the Juggernaut! He's destroying a dam… and—oh god." She fell silent with the rest of the plane, until Kitty's curiosity got the better of her.

"What is it?"

Jean swallowed, and Remy saw her chest rise and fall with a deep breath.

"There's a village below it. Thousands of homes are going to be flooded. They've started the evacuation but they won't get everyone out in time…" She turned to Scott, giving him a very firm look.

"We have to help them."

Scott gritted his teeth, keeping his eyes ahead. "We can't do anything this time—we need the Professor to have a _chance_ of defeating him."

Jean didn't really take to that idea, and grabbed Scott's spandex shirt, dragging his face closer to hers. Cyclops gave a squeak of surprise, and the aircraft jerked to one side as he accidentally pulled at the controls.

"Scott," Jean said, looking straight into her friend's eyes—_or his visor, _Remy corrected. _Dere ain't no way she can see his eyes t'rough all dat red stuff._

"Jean…" Scott moaned helplessly, clearly worried over what would happen to the plane without his skilled hands at the controls.

"Listen, Scott," Jean corrected emphatically. "What would the Professor have us do?"

She held him captive until he sighed and nodded. "He'd have us try our best to do the right thing."

Jean smiled and released him. "Come on, let's strategize."

Remy shook his head at the sight, only one thought playing over in his mind; _Dat boy is _so_ whipped._

***

Watching the news was slowly becoming an obsession for Rogue— ever since the day she had seen Remy fighting for his life outside the ruins of the Xavier Institute, she had been sitting in front of the TV every chance she got, desperate for more news. Of course, calling him up to ask how he was would have been a heck of a lot easier, but there were two problems with that plan: firstly, his cell phone would probably have been obliterated in the explosion, and secondly, he hadn't left a number.

Worry interrupted her every waking moment, and when Piotr pointed out that Remy was, as a super powered mutant, much better equipped to take care of himself than the average human being, she allowed herself an internal smile. Although she couldn't touch, the wide array of powers she had at her disposal made her nearly indestructible, albeit at a cost—maybe that was why she had suddenly began to think that anyone who wasn't quite as invulnerable was in dire need of protection.

When she voiced this thought to Piotr, he responded with a smile small.

"I think you are thinking too much of your abilities, Rogue," he said gently, laying a hand on her covered shoulder. "What is happening if the psyche's energy is suddenly depleted? Or what is happening if you are taking too many powers at once and passing out like you have done last week? Every power has a weakness, and I am fearing that having many powers may give many weaknesses to you."

Although the words cut her to some extent, she had to realize it was true. Maybe it was Magneto's complete and utter confidence in her extended abilities that had rubbed off on her; but even that justification was probably an excuse to conceal the shame of becoming cocky and complacent.

_Still_, she mused, _ah wish ah could just go out there and find him. People say no news is good news but for meh, no news is the scariest thing ever._

That was why she nearly jumped a foot when she walked out of a training session and into the makeshift living room to see the newsflash on the TV screen.

'…_it seems like nothing sort of a catastrophe will satisfy this mutant…'_

_Mutant!_ The word oozed news. All thoughts of a shower and a snack forgotten, she vaulted over the couch and plopped down on a cushion. There, on screen stood an enormous man, probably at least seven feet tall, pounds upon pounds of solid muscle covered in a red ensemble complete with a metal helmet. Rogue frowned. Wasn't that the man Mystique had decided to set free when she had hidden away Xavier? No wonder he was going out of control—with Mystique locked up in Area 51 there was no-one to deal with the man.

"Hey, Pete, Johnny— you've gotta see this!" she yelled. In the end it was only Piotr who lumbered into the room and moved behind the couch. She shifted in her seat and frowned when she couldn't see the carrot top. "Where's the firebug?" she asked.

"Mission," Piotr replied, brief as ever. Rogue shrugged, thinking nothing of it, and turned back to the screen. The couch rattled as Piotr leant forward on it, his elbows placed on the top ridge. "Rogue?"

"Yeah?" she responded, eyes glued to the TV. Piotr coughed, an uncomfortable sound.

"I have just been spoken to by Magneto."

"And?"

"He is saying that under no circumstances should I be letting you out of the base."

Rogue turned to look at him, eyebrows raised. "Piotr?"

"Da?"

"When am ah _ever_ allowed outta the base?"

Piotr stood up again, and took a step back from the couch. "Perhaps," he mused, somewhat nervous, "Magneto is thinking that there will be a special reason why you would want to leave the base."

Rogue swallowed and her stomach suddenly felt ready to spill its contents.

"Piotr," she asked, fighting hard to keep her voice even, "What's happened to Remy?"

Piotr sighed, and pointed at the television. "That."

Rogue spun around, a gasp ripping from her throat as she saw a familiar black helicopter touch down on the distant tarmac.

"Are they stupid?" she shrieked, jumping to her feet. "That mutant's indestructible, and their little telepath ain't gonna cut it!" Her hands flew to her striped hair, and she fiddled with it nervously as she decided what to do.

"Pete," she said at last, and the giant braced himself. She _never_ used that tone of voice unless she was going to do something very, very stupid. He only nodded, not trusting himself to speak. "Do you mind if ah—jus' tell the Buckethead that ah went tah take a shower. He can't put the blame on yah for that." She made as if to leave, but Piotr lunged forward and grabbed her arm.

"Do not be rash," he warned, but the southerner turned to him, her eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.

"Back off, Pete," she spat, and he felt her arm wriggle under his grip.

"You know what will happen when you get out there," he shot back. She rolled her eyes.

"Ah ain't runnin' away; that would be stupid and futile. Ah have every intention of comin' back, preferably before the Buckethead returns with John—ah'm just gonna go over there, sort out the Juggernaut. Ah'll be back before dinnertime."

Piotr let out the breath he'd been holding and loosened his grip. "Do you promise?" he probed, wary of her actual intentions. She grinned.

"Would ah lie to you?"

Piotr let his eyes fall to the floor. "Normally—no. But now I am not so sure." His gaze snapped back to Rogue, and when he saw her crushed expression he added, "Not because you are not trusting me. Because this Remy—he is the only kind of family you are having left. I know I would maybe lie to Johnny, to you, if Ilyana's safety was concerned. Friendship is strong, but—how is it the Americans say? Blood is thicker than water."

A delighted smile flashed on Rogue's face, and she stepped forward to put her arms around Colossus in a careful hug. "Thanks, Pete," she murmured against his shirt. "Ah knew yah'd understand."

The Russian turned bright red. "Come on," he reminded, pushing her gently away. "You are having a friend to rescue."

Rogue laughed. "Can yah believe it?" she teased. "Ah almost forgot." He knew, of course, that it had never left her mind, and he said a small prayer as she closed her eyes and disappeared in a puff of sulfurous smoke. She was going to need all the help she could get.

***

Remy shook his head in exasperation as cement crumbled under the raw red energy streaming from Scott's eyes. _Dat boy's got a whole lotta power but nothin' like finesse._ After Kurt and Kitty had finally managed to remove their attacker's helmet, Scott had ripped off his visor to blast the mutant with as much energy as he could summon. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be working.

The X-Men stood frozen by horror as the blast started to weaken and the Juggernaut advanced and wrapped a meaty hand around Scott's face, his palm covering the boy's eyes completely. Jean gasped; Remy braced himself, and took a step forward.

"Why don't y' leave de boy scout an' pick on someone y' own size!"

The Juggernaut turned his massive head, and narrowed his bulbous eyes until they focused on the beaten up Cajun who had spoken. "What, like _you?_" he scoffed.

Remy grinned. "Yeah. Like _me_."

The giant laughed then, big, bellowed chuckles that reverberated off of the rubble. He loosened his grip on the unconscious Cyclops and let the boy drop to the concrete.

"This could get interesting," he growled, cracking giant fists. "Bring it on,_ runt_."

"Oh believe me," Remy quipped, "I will."

Before the Juggernaut could blink, he spun to fling overcharged cards across mere metres of air towards the mountain of muscle. They whined as they flew, and the agitated noise prompted Remy to take a few big steps back. The explosion that occurred was more violent than he'd expected, and it flung him backwards towards a heap of wreckage. He closed his eyes when he saw it coming and pulled his knees to his chest in a final attempt to limit the damage which never came. An invisible force broke his fall and set him gently on the ground.

Remy blinked, and turned his head to see who his rescuer was. When he saw Jean with her hands thrust in front of her he grinned, and she nodded back, the expression on her face strained, sweat pouring down her cheeks. However much she hated it when the thief pushed her buttons, they were on the same team, and Jean Grey was never one to let a teammate down.

Unfortunately for Remy telekinesis was no match for the Juggernaut's strength, and it only took a few seconds for the giant to lumber over and seize him by the shirt.

"Come on, runt," he bellowed, showering Remy with a fountain of spittle, "Impress me!" Remy winced as the saliva spattered his face, but dug his hands into his pockets all the same.

"Y' asked fo' it, big guy!"

"Wha— but before the Juggernaut could finish what he was saying, Remy LeBeau had shoved three magenta streaked playing cards into the giant's mouth.

_Dat'll teach him_, the Cajun thought, satisfied and able to momentarily ignore the pain in his arm, but to his horror Cain Marco swallowed the cards whole, and the only indication that they had exploded was a dull 'thump' from deep under his cherry red suit.

"Nice try, runt," he snarled, "But it'll take more than that to stop _me_!"

"Ah think ah might be able to help yah there," interrupted a sarcastic voice, and something twisted in the Juggernaut's face as it slowly but steadily lost its color. Remy watched with morbid fascination as his skin seemed to contract, blue green veins suddenly as visible as the blood pumping through them.

His captor's hands slowly relaxed, and Remy dropped to the floor, landing, of course, on his feat, neat as a cat. What—or rather who—he saw behind the hulking man surprised him much more than the manner in which he had been released. He should have known from the accent, but there was Anna, her bare fingers pressed to the Juggernaut's neck.

What surprised him much, much more was the fact that she was hovering several feet above the ground.

"Anna?" he whispered. A million questions and answers sprung to mind—what was she doing here? What _was_ she doing? Her power— _ah suck the powers—memories—the life—outta anyone ah touch—_this must be how it worked.

Somehow, she heard his voice, and turned her head ever so slightly towards him. The forced smile on her face did nothing to hide her obvious pain and when a gasp escaped her lips and she started to shudder, he prayed to whatever God was watching and launched himself at her.

She didn't fall as easily as she should have—it was as if there was an invisible force connecting her skin with the skin of her victim—and when he did rip her from the air they plummeted together, Remy careful to shift so that he would take the brunt of the fall.

They landed with an _oof_ and he vaguely felt her move off of him, before a force yanked him effortlessly to his feet. It was Anna, and he dizzily noticed that she did not look happy.

"What was that for, yah crazy fool?!" she yelled. "Ah had that brute's powers! Ah can take a fall, yah know!"

He managed to smile, his vision still not quite 20/20, although he managed to make out the sprawled figure of that Juggernaut on the ground. "Eh, y' know me, _chèrie_. I'll do anyt'in' fo' a lady."

She managed an eye roll before she bit her lip, her bright green eyes scanning him from head to toe. "Ah'm glad you're okay," she confessed, almost shy. "Ah've been worried sick for the last couple of days."

He smirked. "Aww, did y' miss me?" A cherry red blush crept over her cheeks, and she slapped him on the arm.

"Shush. Yah know ah did." Then she tilted her head, regaining that puppy dog look she used to use on him when they were kids. "Did yah miss _meh_?"

A grin blossomed on his face, and ignoring her protests, he pulled her to him in a hug.

"'Course I did, Anna," he mumbled, but she stiffened at his words.

"Rogue," she reminded him. "It's Rogue now."

He sighed, but didn't push it any further. "_Bien_. I missed y', Rogue."

The name felt so unfamiliar on his lips—though when he thought about it, the title made perfect sense. It was who she was now—the Rogue, not the innocent little Anna he remembered. She had grown from a cute, mischievous child into a beautiful yet dangerous woman, and he wanted desperately to make up for lost time.

"Step away from her, Gambit."

Scott's voice was weak, and Remy rolled his eyes. "What now, Scooter?"

His pesky leader had woken up, crawled to his feet, and was now busy putting his visor back on. "She's an Acolyte—you can't trust her!"

Rogue shot the boy a disbelieving look. "Is he for real?"

Remy sighed. "'Fraid so, _chèrie._ 'S okay, I'll sort him out."

Annoyed with Scott for breaking up their reunion, he strode over to him with him arms crossed over his chest. "Well?" he demanded. Scott glared through his visor.

"Why are you consorting with an Acolyte?" he spat.

"Dat ain't any old acolyte," Remy interjected. "De _fille_'s m' friend, An—Rogue," he amended. "We knew eachot'er when we was still kids, and don't t'ink fo' a minute dat y' can stop me talkin' wit' her. I've waited years t' see her again and I don't need y' buttin' in. She's like _ma petite soeur—_m' little sister."

"Little sister?" Scott asked, skeptical. Remy groaned, and threw his hands up in the air.

"Why are y' all jumpin' t' dat conclusion?" he hissed, keeping his voice low so that An—Rogue wouldn't overhear. "Y' all so sick minded!"

It was Scott's turn to roll his eyes as he loudly proclaimed, "Well, to be perfectly honest, Remy, you're such a ladies man that we don't know what to—"

"Scott!" Jean's voice was piercing, and it stopped Scott in his tracks. "The Professor would have wanted friendly relationships between our teams." Remy stifled a chuckle. Jean's mantra seemed to be WWXD—What Would Xavier Do? Before he could intervene, Jean had stepped up to Rogue, bare hand outstretched.

"Hi, I'm Jean Gray," she announced. The southern girl just stared dumbly at the proffered appendage, then broke into a nervous smile.

"Ah—ah'm sorry. Ah can't really have skin to skin contact with anyone… hang on a sec." It was painful for Remy to see her fumble with her glove, but when she had it on properly she pasted a smile on her face. "Nice tah meet yah. Ah'm Rogue."

"Rogue…" Jean tried, probing for a surname. The other girl shrugged.

"Just Rogue," she confirmed, and pulled her hand away.

Jean smiled. "Well, we owe you for saving our lives—is there anything we can do? Do you need a ride anywhere?"

Rogue grinned. "Ah'm pretty capable of gettin' around…" she let her words trail off as she saw the lump of muscle lying on the concrete. "Ah'd better take care 'o him before ah forget."

Remy stifled a smile as she stalked over to the man, latched a tiny hand around his wrist and pulled him up into the air. Jean's eyes almost boggled out of her head, and Remy was pretty sure that Scott's _did_—it was just that visor that kept them from splattering on the floor. Seeing Cyclops' jaw drop as the Juggernaut went sailing through the air was something Remy didn't want to forget—_ever_.

He guessed the Rogue enjoyed it too, because she had a wicked grin on her face as she dusted off her hands. "Now that ah've finished that off, there's a memory ah absorb—"

No-one heard the dart fly towards her skin; he only noticed when her eyes rolled back in her head and her knees gave out underneath her, leaving him only enough time to sprint forward and catch her before she fell. "Anna—_chère_—what—"

Jean gasped, but he barely paused to notice that it wasn't a gasp of horror; more of realization. Sunlight caught on the sliver of metal protruding from Anna's neck, and Remy ran a gloved thumb up her skin until he felt hard metal embedded there.

"Remy—she just projected—"

"Jean," he interrupted, his patience worn to shreds and a hint of desperation in his voice "—dere's a needle—"

"She is not going to be awake any time soon," remarked a steely voice, and a shiver ran down Remy's spine. The other X-Men were in place, ready to fight, but he knew from that moment that it would be no use.

That didn't mean he wasn't going to try.

"Magneto," he said aloud, and as if it was a reply, the girl in his hands shot into the air, although her eyes were still shut and her body motionless. He turned then to see her hovering in the air next to the villain, who shot him a smug smile.

"Metal fibers in the training outfits. Ingenious, wouldn't you say?"

Remy crossed his arms, his mood very quickly turning sour. "More like obvious," he shot back. Magneto just chuckled.

"Ah, you are a funny one. Pity you haven't learnt what is yours and what is not. Then again, that's typical of a thief, isn't it?"

"Seems like y' de funny one, eh, _mon_ _ami_?" Remy spat. Magneto was not amused, and he turned to his captive. Her head lolled to one side, two-toned hair messily arranged over her face. It was as if a hand squeezed his heart; he hated seeing her so helpless. It made him want to protect her all the more.

"It surprises me," the terrorist mused, "that she managed to make it over here without fainting. Then again, if her true intention was not to run away… well, I will have to acquire another telepath as soon as possible."

Scott didn't miss the glance Magneto shot at Jean, but Remy spoke before he could make any threats. "Y' a sick man, y' know dat?" he growled, though he didn't know quite Magneto was talking about. "Only y'd resort t' messin' wit' de girl's mind."

Magneto smiled, and Remy's blood turned to ice. "Ah-ah-ah. Careful now. Isn't that what you've done, so many times before? Using those charm powers of yours… it seem to me that using them to compel people is just as unethical…"

"Charm powers?" Kitty muttered in the background. Remy winced. How did Magneto know about _that_ aspect of his powers? He hadn't told anyone, save for the Professor, but that was just in the interest of full disclosure. And now that whole team knew!

He could say goodbye to late nights out and skipped danger room sessions, that was for sure!

"Dat's different," was all he said, sounding vaguely like a sullen child.

"Is it? Well, I shall give you the chance to think about it. If you want to rebel against Xavier's rules, you might as well join my side."

Remy spat at the metal manipulator's feet. "Fat chance 'o dat," he snarled. Magneto shrugged.

"Very well then. In that case, I think I had better get going. Goodbye, Mr. LeBeau."

As Magneto turned his back and began to float away, Remy snapped. He wouldn't let her be taken away again. Not for the third time. He might be weak in comparison to the Master of Magnetism, but he couldn't give up without trying—and there was a one in a million chance that this would be a case of 'third time lucky'.

"Jean! Take me up!"

Jean stepped back, startled. "What? I don't think I can—"

"Jus' do it!" he yelled, and suddenly he was airborne, hurtling towards his friend and her captor. Unfortunately he was too busy being angry to enjoy the flight. "Give her back!" he yelled, limbs haphazardly levitated as the gap between thief and villain closed.

_That_ attracted Magneto's attention. The man shook his head, as if he was dealing with a toddler. "You never learn, do you?" he said sadly, and a steel pipe rose up out of the rubble. It was the last thing Remy saw before his vision went black and the sensation of falling filled his awareness. Then—nothing.

***

When Rogue awoke, it was in a dark, dank room, instantly recognizable as a holding cell beneath the base. She shivered. It was cold and wet and altogether less than pleasant—she could just about see pools of muddy water on the floor and feel the softness of moss on the ground beneath her. The identity of the person keeping watch outside was harder to make out—"Peter!" she realized, once she had squinted to make her vision a little clearer. He didn't turn to her, just sat on a little stool just beyond the bars that trapped her, silent and stoic as ever. "Pete! What am ah doin' here?"

"Magneto is keeping you here until you are learning not to run away."

She frowned; why was he acting so unfriendly? "Can yah at least help meh outta these chains if ah promise good behaviour?"

"No," he snapped, and his reaction took her by surprise. "You are surely able to use your own powers for that."

"Actually, I cain't," she shot back once she'd tried, thoroughly irritated. "Mah head's all muzzy and confused. Why are you actin' so grumpy, anyway?"

Silence reigned for a few seconds, until Piotr whispered, "He has added three more years to my contract."

The severity of the punishment sank in quickly; three extra years of slave labor. Three extra years of terrorism. Worst of all, three extra years with his little sister locked away. All because he had let her run out after her best friend.

It was enough to make her crawl into the corner and pull her knees to her chest. She didn't deserve his friendship, and he didn't deserve her anger. …_I know I would maybe lie to Johnny, to you, if Ilyana's safety was concerned…_ and that extended to obeying their boss' orders, too.

She swallowed hard, only one thought reverberating around her skull: _What have ah done?_

***

_**Okay, a real quick (voluntary!) questionnaire for the reviews: (I'm a sucker for feedback, you see!)**_

_**--What was your favorite part of the chapter?**_

_**--What was your least favorite part of the chapter?**_

_**And bonus question: --What do you think is more important in fan fiction: Good writing or a quirky plot?**_

_**Thanks so much to enchantedlight, The Duplicitous One, gabsta, Wanda W, pennylane87, kataragirl11, TheRealRogue, Nightwatcher'sunknowngirl, sophiesayshi, ChamberlinofMusic, Star-of-Chaos, tfobmv18 and RogueNya for reviewing. I really, really appreciate it!**_

_**And thanks as always to my lovely beta, mspotts!**_

_allyg1990_


	8. Chapter 8: Rest and Relaxation: For some

"Charles? Charles? I think he's regaining consciousness."

Remy LeBeau's red-on-black eyes slowly focused on the person in their direct line of vision, which was, oddly enough, Professor Charles Xavier. Remy tried to frown, but the tiny motion tugged at bruised muscles and made him wince in pain.

"Try to relax, Mr. LeBeau." The Professor's tone was amused and his voice physical; but since when had they even known where the telepath was being hidden, let alone found him?

"_Professeur?_" he tried to ask, but his voice was sluggish and lethargic. Xavier rewarded him with a small smile.

"Yes, Remy, I was freed from my imprisonment while you were unconscious. Be careful not to exert yourself. You sustained a serious head injury, and have been heavily sedated as a consequence. You may find that you have some trouble communicating."

"Didn' notice," Remy croaked. The Professor's smile widened.

"Good. I see you are back to your normal self, though I would expect no less, seeing as you have been unconscious for the last four days."

_Four days? But—_

"Anna—_mon amie—_" He struggled to sit up, trying to ignore the pain, but Hank McCoy's huge furry hands pressed on his shoulders to keep him down.

"Take it easy, Remy," he ordered. "You are recovering from severe bruising and a concussion."

"But—" the Cajun protested. The doctor shook his head.

"No buts. You're not leaving this bed for at least another three days. Who knows what you'll get up to if we let you loose?"

Remy took a deep breath in an attempt at controlling his frustration. When he spoke again, he spoke slowly, trying his best to keep his voice clear and intelligible.

"I don't t'ink y' understand," he half-slurred. "M' friend An—Rogue—she got taken 'way by de metal head. I gotta get 'er back b'fore she gets hurt."

Hank exchanged a grim look with the Professor.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible," said the Professor gently. Remy tried to interrupt, but the man held up a hand. "Listen to what I have to say, Remy. Even if I believed that Eric would mistreat one of his Acolytes—and I do not—we simply do not have the resources to perform a rescue mission at this stage."

"_Mais Professeur!_" the younger man interjected. "He's been messin' wit' her mind—he admitted as much—and what kind of a carin' boss shoots sedative darts into his employee's necks?"

"I'm sorry Remy, but we cannot—"

"Dat's _merde_, and y' know it!" Remy cried, his anger suddenly getting the better of him. "Y' got contacts—why don't y' _use_ 'em fo' once! Y' could find her wit' telepathy, too! We got a senior team of six students an' t'ree staff—we can overpower Magneto—"

"That's enough, Gambit!" the Professor cut in sharply, looking less than amused. "Look around you. We do not even have proper basic amenities, let alone transport—many of my 'contacts' as you put them have withdrawn their support for a man who teaches mutant children, and the fuel supplier for our aircraft is one of them! I am housing around twenty people underground in makeshift rooms, as well as trying to negotiate positive relations between humanity and mutant kind, and you choose to label me as incompetent because I cannot perform something as _simple_ as a rescue mission."

The brief silence that followed the Professor's outburst was broken only by Remy's stubbornly mumbled "_Excusez-moi_," to which the Professor replied with a disappointed look, and turned to leave the crude imitation of a medical centre.

"Well, that went well," Hank mused as he puttered around the room. Remy groaned and let his head fall back on the pillow, taking in the half-wrecked remains of the ceiling.

"I t'ink I overreacted," he murmured.

"Yes," Hank said truthfully. "Though with good reason. Men will sacrifice a surprising amount when it comes to people they love."

Remy felt heat build on his cheeks from a mixture of anger and embarrassment. "Not y' too, Hank…" The ape-like man waved Remy's words away.

"I don't mean in the romantic sense. You said that she was like a sister to you; that in itself is a very precious kind of love."

"_Merci,_" Remy said quietly, slightly struck by the doctor's words. It was true, what he said—and made him all the more determined to rescue Anna before it was too late.

"But," Beast added, almost as an afterthought, "If you did have stronger feelings for her I'm sure no-one would be—"

"Thanks, Hank," Remy interrupted sarcastically. He had known that it had been too good to be true. "I 'ppreciate y' support."

"Any time, Remy," Beast replied, cheerful as ever and unaware of his faux pas. Remy sighed, and started to fidget as the minutes ticked past and the boredom started to creep up on him.

Finally his instincts got the better of him and he blurted out, "Has anyone got a pack 'o cards so I c'n play solitaire?"

"I've got better than that!" Kitty giggled, phasing up through the floor and dropping a long, flat metallic case onto Remy's shins. He winced, but then his eyes widened as Kitty flicked open the catches.

"Is dat a poker set?" he stuttered, incredulous. Kitty smirked.

"It sure is. I took it from Mr. Logan's room, it's not like _he_ ever uses it. Okay, now, seeing as we're all kind of short of cash at the moment, how about we bet _gossip_? Because I _swear_ I saw this really weird look in your eyes when…"

Remy stifled an anguished sob and sank deeper into his pillows. This was going to be a long, torturous three days.

**

"So the little runaway has finally awoken." Her master's voice echoed around the room; a shiver ran up Rogue's spine and it took a physical effort to stop the trembling that stemmed both from helpless fear and the sudden arrival of a chilly breeze.

"Ah didn't run away," she muttered into the darkness, then slowly struggled to get to her feet. "You know ah didn't. Ah would have passed out before ah set foot outta the buildin'."

"True," Magneto agreed as he stepped out of the shadows, walking towards her. "But if you were truly devoted to our cause—loyal to me, and to your teammates—you would never have left to help an enemy."

She lifted her head then, defiance in her eyes when she stared him square in the face.

"He's like mah family, _Buckethead_, and blood is thicker than water."

She regretted the words as soon as they left her lips; Eric Lensherr lifted a metal-gloved hand, an unfathomable look in his eyes, and gripped the girl's chin between his thumb and forefinger. Her body trembled more violently of its own accord, as his expression suddenly shifted to hold more fury then she'd ever seen before, and he released her, only to slide his hand down her dangerously bare throat and grip it, hard. Her hands shot up to claw at his metallic gloves, to no avail, and as the seconds passed black spots crept into her vision.

You have gone too far, Rogue," Magneto remarked, his voice far too calm to match the fury that had flared up in his icy eyes. "Too far."

He threw her slight frame with ease, and the impact sent her flying across the dingy cell and into a rough metal wall. The back of her skull collapsed against the wall, leaving a smudge of blood on the metal as she slid to the floor with her limbs jutting awkwardly in painful directions.

"No, Magneto. You haf gone too far."

Piotr's voice came as a surprise to her half-conscious mind. What was he doing defending her?

"Be quiet, Colossus," Magneto snapped. "Or your sentence may well increase by another three years. Has the punishment she dealt you already slipped your mind?"

"It is true that I am being mad with her," the giant admitted, his voice more heavily accented through the buzzing in her ears, "But hurting her for no reason is not being a good idea."

"She is _my_ property; _my _weapon, and it is up to _me_ to decide how I should treat her." Magneto shot back, his voice untainted by remorse. "And besides, in a few hours time, an acquaintance of mine will ensure that she never disobeys me again."

His words struck Rogue through her pain, and she tried to writhe to a sitting position. Her body would not obey her, and terror swept through her. Magneto's 'acquaintance' was definitely a telepath, and she had no desire to become a mindless robot.

The cell door rattled shut. "Leave her in there."

"But she will bleed to—"

"She will not," Magneto cut in, firm. "If you try to assist her, it will be _you_ who bleeds to death."

Silence; and then: "Yes, _master_."

She heard the familiar twang that accompanied Magneto's powers, and her muscles relaxed a little once she was sure he was gone. What could she do now? She probably had a concussion, and she knew it wasn't a good idea to fall asleep if you were concussed. Plus, Magneto was planning to use a telepath to increase the mental hold he already had over her. If she didn't act quickly, she'd be stuck as Magneto's eternal slave.

If only she hadn't been drugged! Her mind was still hopelessly muzzy, so much so that she couldn't feel for the cracks in her mental wall to pull a psyche out and use an absorbed power. All she could sense was her wall, somehow far in the distance rather than close within her mind. It was hopeless. She'd never get out of this dingy cell, unless…

Maybe it was the blood loss that made her foolish; maybe it was because it was her only choice. She gathered all the mental strength she possessed in her weakened state, roughly shaped it into a ball of energy that blazed behind her eyelids and thrust it in the vague direction of her mental block, hoping for the best.

A shriek tore from her throat as the wall shattered; then the voices overtook her.

**

It was three in the afternoon by the time Remy had finally managed to get rid of Katherine Pryde, and he was finally allowed to have a quiet game of solitaire. Well, until a series of angry yells echoed down the corridors outside the med wing.

"Jean—I'm just trying to—"

"Save it, Scott! I'm not some newborn kitten who has to be looked after twenty four seven! I'm eighteen years old and I have a firm grip over my _telepathic powers_. Don't you think I would notice if someone was trying to kidnap me? No, forget _me_ noticing, the Professor or Wolverine would figure it out before my kidnapper got within a kilometre of the mansion!"

"But Magneto said—"

"I don't care, Scott! Ugh! Just… leave me alone."

"Jean—"

"Save it, Cyke!"

The med wing doors flew open and Scott Summers came flying in, deposited onto the floor in a heap with the twang of telekinesis.

"Girlfriend trouble?" Remy asked, unable to wipe the smirk off of his face.

Scott turned tomato-red. "No," he mumbled, shame-faced. "Jean isn't my girlfriend."

Remy rolled his eyes. "An' disregardin' dat point, what's de problem?"

"It's none of your business," Scott snapped, getting to his feet.

Remy shrugged. "She t'inks y' smotherin' her, so give de _fille_ some space."

"How can I?" Scott blurted out as he spun to face the Cajun. "Magneto is probably out there, plotting to kidnap—"

"No," Remy shot back, his voice suddenly icy. "Magneto's out dere tryin' t' mind-warp m' oldest friend so dat she can't leave his glorious presence wit'out droppin' dead. So give Jean a rest. She ain't in any danger."

"Would you say the same thing if it was—Rogue—in Jean's position?" Scott wanted to know, the red ruby-quartz lenses of his glasses glowing a little brighter. "Would you let her out of your sight, _knowing_ that she might get snatched away at any moment? _Would you_?"

Remy was silent for a long moment, because he knew Scott had caught him out.

"As much as it pains Remy t' admit it, y' right," he agreed. "Remy would prob'ly do de same t'ing."

He thought he saw Scott smile as the younger boy fell into a nearby chair.

"I have something in common with the great Remy LeBeau," he mused. "Who would have thought?"

Remy shrugged. "Don' be too flattered, shades," he warned. "It ain't gonna happen again."

Scott sighed. "Sure." Then, "Do you mind if I stay here?"

Remy frowned. "No—but why?"

"Well," Scott explained, "If I know her at all, Jean's going to be on the warpath for at least another half an hour, and I'd rather not be skinned alive—Gambit, is that a poker set?"

Remy rolled his eyes. "_Oui, m'sieur_, it is. What are y' gonna do 'bout it?"

Scott eyed the metal box. "Can you teach me how to play?"

Remy's eyeballs nearly fell out of his skull. "Y' want me to teach y' how t' play _poker_?"

"It never hurts to know your enemy," was Scott's only reply. Remy sighed.

"I knew dere was a reason…" he muttered to himself, but suddenly a miniature lightbulb flashed above his head. "Okay, Cyke, what are we bettin'?"

Scott shifted nervously in his seat. "Uh… information?"

Remy grinned. This was about to get very, very interesting.

* * *

_I'm SO sorry for the really slow update, though I'm afraid it won't be getting better from here. I have major, major exams coming up and unfortunately the next month will be revision, revision, revision… again, I'm really terribly sorry. I'm working hard on getting chapter 9 out before I embark on the revision journey, though. Three pages down, four to go. Your reviews rock my world and inspire me more than I can say. Please keep at it! :) _

_Allyg1990_


	9. Chapter 9: Saviour

Thirty minutes later, Remy had won six games of poker and had gotten a play-by-play of several major scandals that had gone on in the mansion before he arrived, as well as Scott's confession that he was hopelessly in love with Jean. Scott had won one game, (because Remy had let him, of course) and had been rewarded with more than enough relationship advice to snag his girl. Remy very much doubted the team leader would ever use it—for someone who blasted villains in half with a single glance, he was pretty chicken.

Just as Gambit was laying down his third royal flush, the surge hit him. A wave of telepathic energy shattered his mental shields and attacked his mind, gouged the darkest recesses of his conscious and wormed its way into his thoughts. His hands flew to his head and he slumped to the floor, barely aware of Scott leaning over him and calling for help. The will to move drained away from his body and he lay pinned to the floor by his own weight. All he could hear was a voice repeat his name, over and over again.

_Remy…Remy…Remy…Remy…_

It was a woman's voice, scared, confused, pleading for help. It was _her_ voice; and he knew at that moment that injured or not, he had to do something.

_Let me move…_ he pleaded with the voice. _Let me go, chèrie—I can't help y' if I can't move!_

The voice faded slowly, crudely, and it tore another hole in Remy's mind in the process, delivered another stabbing burst of pain, and then it was a whisper instead of a shout. Sensation prickled back into his limbs and as Remy got to his feet, (to Scott's astonishment) he tried to work out a battle plan. He could take Logan's motorcycle—but where were the keys? No—the X-Van. Simple, spacious, and the keys were hanging up in the kitchen. Not to mention that it went to from zero a hundred kilometers per hour in three seconds, and he'd need speed if he was going to find her in time.

Remy grabbed his boots and forced them onto his feet. "I gotta go— she's in danger—" He started to limp towards the door, but Scott had moved in front of him.

"Are you nuts?! You've got broken ribs, a concussion—"

"Mebbe I don' care," Remy snapped, not bothered that he was being rude. "Move out the way, goggle-boy, or I'll charge y' shirt and leave y' here."

Scott hesitated—Remy grabbed the folds of material in front of him.

"Move it, Cyke. Last warnin'."

Scott moved; Remy barreled past him and staggered to the kitchen. Pain shot through his chest, but he ignored it. He had to save her before it was too late.

It wasn't far to the garage from the kitchen, and within a few minutes he was buckled into the X-Van with his foot on the accelerator. Rubber screeched against gravel, and the vehicle sprung into motion.

_Where are y'?_ He asked the faded voice, and the words it was saying changed.

_East…Bayville…_

She was in _Bayville_? Trust Magneto to hide her right under his nose. But the east side of Bayville was a pretty big place, and it _could_ take him hours to find her.

It didn't even take him ten minutes.

As soon as he crossed into the East side of town a pillar of smoke came into sight in the distance. She was there, he _knew_ she was—and probably in more danger than he had thought.

His fingers shook on the steering wheel as he turned into the street where he knew she waited for him. He could already feel heat radiate into the car; it burned his skin and carried the scent of smoke to his nose. His foot froze on the accelerator when he saw it; the dingy warehouse which had once stood unnoticed on the outskirts of town was gone, and in its place lay a pile of smoldering rubble.

_She's still alive, she has to be_, he told himself, although the voice had abruptly faded from his mind when he saw the skeleton of the building; the absence made him yearn for the telepathic pain he'd been feeling earlier. It had been a small reassurance… and now even that was gone.

His body felt numb as he staggered out of the vehicle, limped towards the fire. Everything was destroyed; pools of molten metal bubbled over charred wood, but he felt certain that this had not been an accidental slip-up courtesy of Pyro. That would have been less…precise—flames would have sprouted from once source and spread. There was a starburst in the middle of the rubble here and everything around it was evenly burnt. What had happened?

Then he heard it. A soft, strangled cry, and the little burst of hope it gave him charged his body with adrenalin. He sprinted towards the middle of the building over hot rubble, all the while thanking Xavier for buying him heavy-duty boots. As he'd prayed, she was there, curled up in a tight ball of black suit and white skin and auburn hair, her face tucked into her knees.

"_Cherie_?" he asked, and he wanted more than ever to scoop her up and steal her away.

"Go…away." Her voice was muffled, but pleading all the same. "Psyches—took over—'gain… Johnny and Pete…tried tah stop meh…buried…"

The blood drained from his face, but before the idea could fully sink in, he heard soft footfalls behind him. He turned, fists to his face, but it was only Jean, her hair mussed, still wearing her civvies.

"Relax, it's just me," she whispered, as if she was completely aware that alerting Rogue to her presence was _not_ a good idea. "Scott told me you'd left, so I flew over."

"So much fo' not usin' y' powers in public," Remy muttered. Jean shrugged.

"When the situation calls…" She grimaced. "Your friend is very confused. It's like she's four people, not one… and the acolytes are still alive, though unconscious. I'm calming her down a little; you should be able to approach safely. I'll take care of the acolytes."

He nodded, and didn't even notice rubble fly into the air as he stepped towards Rogue and crouched down next to her. "C'mon, _chèrie_, y' friends are fine—Jeannie's helpin' dem right now."

"You're lying," she mumbled. He grinned; she was still stubborn, even now.

"Would I lie t' y', Anna?"

"Rogue," she corrected, and uncurled a little. He was now able to see her face, her tearstained green eyes, disorientated and confused. He held her gaze for a few seconds; then he broke into a smile.

"Y' okay," he murmured with relief, "I heard y' voice—in m' head. Y' must be pretty powerful t' break m' kinetic shield."

She shook her head and tried to push herself to a sitting position, but failed miserably. Remy caught her before she collapsed and sat her up.

"It wasn't me—yo' Professah. He's in mah head, but—" She frowned, and wrinkled her nose. "Hang on. He ain't there anymore."

"He'd be able t' help y' figure it out if y' came wit' me," Remy told her, keeping his voice soft. She turned her eyes to the ground.

"Would he?" she whispered. "Ah absorbed him—ah absorbed all of his students. Ah'm a terrorist, Remy."

"_Non,_" he interjected. "Y' work fo' a terrorist. There's a difference. C'mon, Rogue. At least let us get y' patched up."

"Ah cain't—"

"Yes, y' can," he shot back. "C'mon, _chere_, jus' look at me…"

She obeyed; he caught her gaze. "Are y' comin'?"

She swallowed, and he knew then that she was going to say no. "You know ah cain'—"

That was when he really looked at her, unleashed the full power of his eyes. Mutant magic slid towards her, wrapped her up in invisible confidence and tweaked her emotions, just over the tipping point. Her brow furrowed in confusion and little ridges cropped up between her green eyes. "Ah can?"

He beamed. "_Oui_, y' can. Now c'mon and stand up—we gotta get outta here b'fore de metal-man comes back."

She gripped his shoulder as his arm slipped around her waist. "Ah don't think Buckethead'll back any tahme soon…He just left half an hour ago."

Remy chuckled at her name for her boss. "Buckethead? Dat could get catchy, _cherie_. Bobby's gonn' love it."

"Who's Bobb—" Her leg crumpled under her and she swore, but Remy pulled her back up to her feet.

"Seein' as dis walkin' t'ing ain't workin'…" With that he finally slid an arm under her knees and pulled her squeaking in protest up to his chest. "Now ain't dat better?" He asked, much more comfortable with the current situation even though pain lanced through his chest every time she bumped against his bruises, not to mention every time he shifted his weight from foot to foot.

"No," she grumbled and blew a white strand of hair away from her face. "Yah're gonna drop meh, ah just know it."

"_Mais non,_" he replied, smooth as ever. "I ain't no weak li'l kid no more—been goin' t' the gym an' all. Reckon I could bench press Wolverine if he stood still long enough."

She scoffed. "Now ah know yah're lyin'."

"Ouch," he countered as they drew near to the car. "Lyin'? Dat's a strong word. What about kiddin', how does dat work?"

"Fahne." He yanked the passenger door open and helped her in, then slammed it and ran around to the other side, his own pain forgotten. He wasn't too bothered about the fact that he'd influenced her, either. He knew she wanted to come, and she had to get over her hesitations _somehow_. If there was one thing he knew about Rogue, it was that she was stubborn beyond belief, and sometimes needed a little push in the right direction.

She didn't say a word as he turned the key and pressed down on the accelerator. If anything, she eyed the speedometer with a nervous look on her face.

"Can we go a little faster?" she asked quietly. He nodded, but an icy hand clenched his heart. She thought that they would be followed. His foot pressed harder on the pedal, and they zoomed through the streets of Bayville.

"Y' _do _t'ink he'll be back soon, don't y'?" Remy questioned, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. He didn't dare look at her; after all this time she was finally with him, maybe for good—he couldn't tempt the thought that she might be stolen away again.

"Bettah safe than sorry," Rogue mumbled. "If he's got a strong telepath with him… Ah don't know."

"Well den," Remy said evenly, "We'd best hurry."

And they made it far—made it through a few tense, hair-on-end minutes until they were right at the institute gate. At that point Remy rolled down the window to punch in the key code, and the gate swung open.

But when he pressed down on the accelerator, the car wouldn't budge.

"I'm quite impressed that you made it this far, my dear. Though not without help, I see. You really don't have any idea of what is yours to take, do you, Mr. LeBeau?"

Remy struggled to keep his voice even as his hands clenched the steering wheel. "Well, dat's what bein' a master t'ief's all 'bout, Mr. Lensherr."

"I see," Magneto mused, and floated down in front of the windshield. "Well, it would be wise of you to learn that you cannot steal from the Master of Magnetism."

The car jerked to the side and metal scraped against metal as the roof ripped off. Rogue screamed when her seatbelt unbuckled itself—she couldn't help it. Her eyes were wide, mouth half open as Remy threw himself over her, wrapped his arms around her even as she started to rise up into the air. And still there was no-one to rush to their rescue.

"Damn psychic shields," he growled, held down by his own seatbelt as Magneto tugged his friend up by her suit. If only he could get a message out to the Professor!

_But maybe Rogue could._

She was breathing heavily now, almost hyperventilating, and her chest rose and fell in a series of rapid motions. He hugged her tighter, pulled her away from Magneto's powers and whispered in her ear.

"Rogue—_chere_—I can' get t'rough t' de Professor. But y' can. Project to him, Rogue. Ask de _homme_ fo' help. 'S our only chance."

Her eyes widened. "But ah—"

"Y' can do it, _cherie_," he assured her, his desperation barely hidden. "C'mon."

She closed her eyes, scrunched her face up, but at that moment Magneto gave up on petty warnings and _pulled. _Rogue soared into the air.

Remy swore and his fingers moved to his seatbelt. Unfortunately, he found that he couldn't unlock it. Instead of wasting time he slammed his foot down on the accelerator and spun the steering wheel, executing a perfect one hundred and eighty degree turn. Rubber ground against gravel with a hiss as the thief sped after the man who grasped Rogue firmly in his iron grip.

"You are too late, Gambit." Magneto's voice was monotonous and cold, but Remy took no notice of it—getting angry would only hold him up. Instead, he concentrated on keeping the X-Van from flipping over while it hurtled down the road at almost a hundred kilometers per hour.

"Rogue!" He yelled over the screech of the wind. "Use y' powers!"

He couldn't hear her reply, but like any master thief, he could sure as hell read lips, and he saw what she was trying to say. _Mah psyches…they're gone!_

Damn it. She'd burnt them all out. He kept driving blindly after them in the desperate hope that someone would run to the rescue soon, because by the looks of it, they were headed towards the coast.

No-one did—after ten long minutes of the shrieking wind mixed in with Rogue's half audible cries for help, victim and captor floated out over the Atlantic Ocean.

He had failed. He felt like banging his head against his steering wheel after he ground to a halt on the edge of a fenced-in cliff. He might as well drive off, really. Magneto would never let him have a chance to rescue her again. She'd be lost to him forever, and it was his damned fault for not driving fast enough.

He remembered her face as it disappeared from his sight. Her mouth open in a scream, her eyes wide and terrified, and her hair, whipped roughly by the wind.

For the first time in over ten years, a solitary tear rolled down Remy LeBeau's cheek.

"Oh, no you don't!"

The twang of telekinetic energy startled him, and he lifted his dejected head up to survey the scene. There was Jean Grey, hands outstretched and forehead crinkled in concentration, Kurt Wagner stoic by her side. Within two seconds Wolverine had arrived, set his bike carefully aside and joined them.

"What are y' doin' here?" Remy asked, more surprised than anything.

"Savin' yer ass," Wolverine grunted. "You're an X-Man, Gumbo. X-Men stick together."

"He's escaping my hold!" Jean cried. "Kurt, 'port, _now_!"

Nightcrawler disappeared in a puff of obliging smoke, and within a second, Magneto was two feet away from the Cajun, his hands still wrapped around Rogue.

"_Salaud_!" Remy yelled, and flung the door open. The piece of metal knocked into the back of Magneto's legs and threw him forward; then Wolverine lunged.

Jean reached out a hand, telekinetically grabbing the teleport-shocked Rogue as Magneto raised a hand against the supposedly invincible Wolverine.

Invincible, that is, because of his adamantium skeleton, which wasn't exactly difficult for Magneto to handle. Within a few short seconds, the master of Magnetism had whipped the Canadian around so his extended claws were at Kurt and Jean's necks, and Remy was once again locked in the X-Van.

"Almost impressive," Magneto informed them, a satisfied smile playing on his lips. "But not quite impressive enough. Good day, X-Men. I hope that we will meet again only in the very distant future."

With that he took hold of the shell shocked Rogue's slim wrist and rose slowly into the air. They were about ten feet in the air when Rogue snapped out of it and panicked.

"Remy, don't let him—mmmh." Magneto calmly clamped a hand over her mouth, but her desperation made Remy much, much more than angry. Especially when she began to struggle—and her body went limp in Magneto's arms as she fell unconscious.

_De psychic programmin'._

Rage seethed in Remy's stomach and a red haze clouded his vision as he clenched the steering wheel hard enough to leave a deep imprint in his hands.

He wanted to kill Magneto. Rip him bone from bone. Blow up his stupid buckethead helmet!

And on that thought, the helmet began to glow.

"What the—" Remy's jaw dropped. Magneto's expression morphed from smug to terrified, and the helmet flew off of his head and hurtled towards the clouds where it exploded with a force that reverberated back down to earth.

"Now zat, _mein__freund_, is pretty cool," Kurt breathed. Remy just sat there with his mouth wide open. How on earth had that happened? He could only charge things by touching them, but that helmet had definitely been affected by his powers—the magenta glow was a bit of a giveaway.

Magneto seemed similarly surprised, but then his confusion drained away from his face as his eyes lost their intelligence and his muscles slackened. Charles Xavier rolled out of his Rolls Royce in time to see his former friend float gently down to the floor in Jean's hold. Kitty Pryde slammed the passenger door behind him.

"Oh, Erik," the Professor sighed, "What have you done now?"

But Remy paid absolutely no attention to the aged terrorist that Logan lifted into the spacious trunk of the swish car; he nearly ripped the car door open and sprinted towards Rogue who Jean had dragged back down to earth. She had woken up on the journey down and was staring at her former master with a dazed look on her face—half ecstatic, half terrified. Remy ignored that too, and wrapped victorious arms around her.

"We did it, _chèrie_," he whispered. "Y' safe now. Everyt'in's gonna be jus' fine, y' wait and see."

To his surprise, she burst into tears. If anyone had been looking at the entangled friends at that moment, they would have seen a very bewildered Cajun awkwardly patting a tearful southern belle on the back, utterly confused by it all.

"_Chere_…" he mumbled helplessly. "What's wrong?"

The sobs slowly subsided; Rogue lifted her head, her eyes red rimmed and swollen, but a little more sober now. "Ah'm happy, really ah am…it's just… stress, I guess—and the fact that ah haven't been free for almost ten years."

"You are now," the Professor told her as moved towards the southerners. "Erik will not be bothering you for a very long time. As much as it pains me to do this, I will have to turn him over to the government. Many of his views are no longer healthy, and are dangerous to man and mutant kind alike. So you see, my dear, you are perfectly safe with us." The older man smiled. "I would like to extend you an offer of residence and schooling at my institute."

Rogue lifted a gloved hand to wipe her eyes. "But ah absorbed y'all—ah'm a terrorist, sir. People lahke meh don't belong with people lahke y'all."

Before Remy could even open his mouth, Logan cut in.

"Look, kid, half of the X-Men have messy pasts. The part of mine that I even remember isn't somethin' I'd wish on your nightmares, and Gumbo here ain't exactly a saint either. You'll fit in as well as the rest of us."

Rogue hesitated. "But—"

Wolverine shook his head. "No buts about it kid—it's a simple yes or no answer."

Rogue closed her eyes for a brief moment; then she sighed. "Ah guess ah could give it a shot."

Kitty was the only one who squealed. "Oh my gosh, that's like, _so_ cool! I'm the only person who like, doesn't have a roommate so I guess we'll be sharing. This is so totally awesome!"

Rogue stared. "Cain't ah just stay with you?" she drawled into Remy's ear, only half joking.

"Well, _chèrie_," Remy teased, "As much as Remy'd like t' have y' in his bed—" He stopped abruptly, almost sickened by the fact that the thought had run through his head. Rogue was meant to be a sister to him! He couldn't use his normal lines on her!

But he could imagine it all— her soft skin, smooth lips, body fitted close to his—

_No. No, no,__ no, no, no!_

It was at times like these that he was _really_ happy that the Professor couldn't read his mind.

So why was the man giving him a knowing smile?

Remy shrugged, and turned his attention back to the celebration, never stopping to think that his little issue might be the most obvious thing in the world to everyone but him.

_I am SO SO SO SO sorry for this incredibly late update. I hope you'll trust me when I say that it's been one heck of a month for me, and you may have to wait a little while for the next one too. I've been out of my groove lately due to little sleep and so this chapter kind of sucked the first time around. Congratulations to mspotts for salvaging it- she's the best beta a girl could have. _

_And I know you're thinking 'Where's the darned ROMY?' I promise you I'm getting there. Give me three or four chapters. Five pages of the next one have already been written and edited, so in between rough periods I'll try to get a start on them. I am so incredibly sorry for this, I feel like a total hypocrite, but I'm going on a writing course this summer so hopefully that'll help me get my jazz back._

_Thank you guys so much for all the support and reviews throughout this! I wouldn't have ever carried on without you._

_Until next time,_

_allyg1990_


	10. Chapter 10: Start Over

When Charles Xavier thought that Kitty had harassed their newest student for long enough, he cleared his throat.

"Kitty—perhaps you could introduce everyone?"

Kitty grinned. "Like, no problem, Professor. Rogue, this is—oh, sorry, I bet you don't like being called by your codename all the time. Um, what's your—"

"Just Rogue, actually," the southerner cut in. "Ah… let's just say that mah old name doesn't really suit meh anymore."

Kitty frowned and pursed her lips for a split second, as if in thought. Then she shook off the thought that was bothering her and her smile returned. "Okay. So Rogue, this is Ms. Monroe, also known as Storm. And you kind of talked to Mr. Logan—Wolverine."

"And I," Kurt interrupted, "Am Kurt, also known as ze Incredible Nightcrawler!"

Kitty rolled her eyes. "In your dreams, fuzzy," she teased. "Anyway, you like, met Jean before, when you totally whupped the Juggernaut's—" She caught the Professor's stern glance and gulped, realizing that speaking crudely about the man's brother was probably not the best course of action. "—heiney."

Even Rogue had to smile at that. "It's nice tah meet y'all," she drawled, though the fact that she slipped her left hand into Remy's and gripped it tight didn't go amiss.

An awkward silence settled over the group, and Rogue shifted her weight from foot to foot while everyone tried to figure out something to say.

They didn't have to think much longer, as at that moment a loud grumble emanated from the depths of Kurt's stomach. The German mutant's fur turned a strange shade of pink. "_Entschuldigen,_" he muttered, and his tail drooped to the floor in embarrassment.

Kitty laughed. "We should like, totally get back to the mansion." She lifted her wrist and squinted hard at the spandex. "I think it's past Kurt's dinner time."

Nightcrawler scowled. "Teleporting burns a lot of calories."

"So does shifting my atoms, but you don't see _me_ eating eight portions at every meal, do you?" she shot back.

The Professor laced his fingers together in front of his face to stifle a smile. "Kitty is right. If we return to the institute in a timely fashion Rogue will have more time to settle in before dinner time. Logan, if you would?"

"Sure, Chuck," Wolverine grunted as he walked over to the Rolls Royce and yanked the door open. The wheelchair ramp slid out automatically and Rogue watched in silence as the Professor trundled up into the dark belly of the vehicle.

The demon-like teenager grabbed his phasing friend and disappeared in a puff of sulfurous smoke under the disapproving eyes of Ororo Munroe.

"Honestly," the weather witch muttered, "You would think that they would be motivated enough to at least _walk_ to the car." She followed her own suggestion, straight-backed and head held high, leaving only Jean behind with the two southerners.

"Well," the redhead said brightly, wringing her hands and plastering a megawatt smile on her face, "We should get in, too."

Rogue glanced up at Remy with an uneasy expression, but he just smiled and squeezed her shoulder. "Go on, _chere_."

With that she swallowed, and climbed into the intimidating vehicle.

***

When Rogue clapped eyes on the mansion, it was like a three year old had been plunked down in the middle of a five story candy store. She splayed her fingers out against the window, her nose pressed to the glass.

Remy ruffled her hair. "T'ought y'd seen it all before."

"Not in broad daylight," she mumbled. "An' not in mah right state o' mind."

The tires spat gravel and the car stopped. Remy hopped out and held the door open for the other southerner.

"Ladies first," he drawled, and Rogue managed a tired smile, but as soon as her foot touched the gravel she froze. Remy followed her gaze to the door, where roughly ten teenagers huddled at the glass, stares on the new arrival. Before he could open his mouth to say anything Jean, who'd run around from the other side, shook her head and discreetly touched her fingers to her temples. Every spy's face went as white as a hospital wall as they scurried off to occupy themselves.

It was only when they were all in the entrance hall that the Professor spoke.

"Rogue, if you don't mind, I'd like to have a quick chat before you start to settle in."

Although her lips were pursed, Rouge nodded. Remy frowned and took the Professor aside.

"Rogue'_s_ lost both of her parents—her father left when she was jus' a little girl, and her _mere_ died soon after she disappeared. So go easy on de _fille_, _hein?_ Don' probe fo' answers or anyt'in'."

"I wouldn't dream of it," the Professor said sincerely. Remy gave a slow nod and then backed away.

"I'll see y' in a few minutes, _chere_—gotta make sure Kitty don' sprinkle y' side of de room wit' glitter while y' in wit' de _Professeur_."

Rogue rewarded him with a small smile. "See you."

He ducked his head and turned on his heel, leaving her to watch him vanish down the corridor.

"Shall we retire to my office?" Professor Xavier asked kindly. Rogue blinked, startled, and then turned towards the man.

"Sure."

The Professor lifted his hand to press a button on what seemed to be a solid oak wall, and a door slid open to reveal a minimally decorated study. The floor and walls were bare, but two plump leather armchairs sat in the middle of the room.

"Please, do sit down. Unfortunately most of the building was destroyed in the blast, and we haven't yet been able to rebuild much of it."

Rogue's stomach turned. "Ah'm sorry about that."

Xavier shook his head. "You have nothing to be sorry for. Now, please make yourself comfortable. Perhaps we could start with how you came to be in your current situation."

Rogue pursed her lips. "It's a long story."

The Professor smiled. "We have time, Rogue."

The southern girl gave a small nod before settling herself into the armchair. "Ah guess ah'd better start from the beginnin'."

There was a short period of silence, but encouraged by his warm smile, she took a deep breath and began to speak.

"We moved from Caldecott, Mississippi to New Orleans when ah was about four and a half. Ah don't remember much of mah old home; don't remember anythin' of mah father. He left pretty early on, maybe when ah was one or two, and it was always me and mah mama after that."

Her eyes darted to the floor and she bit her lip. Sensing no shame after a few moments, her gaze crept back up slowly to meet his, and she continued, "We were next-door neighbors to the LeBeaus. Mama realized early on that they were a shady sort of people, but she got tah be good friends with Mattie Baptiste, so much so that Mattie came over tah help with mah fifth birthday party. Since she knew ah didn't have many friends in town yet, she brought Henri and Remy with her. Remy and ah hit it off pretty quickly and soon we were pretty much livin' at each other's houses. The LeBeaus became mah second family, and although mama wasn't too happy about Remy and ah roamin' around their grounds, she trusted them to keep meh safe."

Silence dragged on once again until the Professor probed, "Go on."

"When ah was about seven, we were playing in the woods at night," she whispered at last. "And a man came out of the shadows. He grabbed meh, but Remy pulled me away from him, stared him square in the face. And the man saw his eyes, started to beat him around. Remy was knocked out pretty fast, and then he came for meh again. So ah tried to push him away—and mah powers kicked in."

The Professor nodded, though his stomach twisted at the thought of the experience. "Yes—mutant powers do often manifest early in self-defense."

Rogue swallowed. "Yeah. Well, he was out for the count pretty quick, and by that time Remy had come around. Ah told him not to touch meh, but—he grabbed my ankle and ah absorbed him too. Ah thought ah'd killed him, and ah ran back home—but mama didn't believe me. She touched meh too, and ah—" She paused abruptly, and her chest rose and fell in a deep breath, as if she was trying to collect herself. The Professor tried his best to offer her a sympathetic smile—it couldn't be easy to absorb the psyche of such a close family member. And then to lose them so soon afterwards!

"Anyway, ah ran away after that, and met Irene Adler, also known as Destiny. She and Mystique adopted meh soon after—"

"Mystique?" the Professor interrupted in surprise. Rogue nodded.

"Yeah. Did yah know her?"

The Professor laced his fingers together. "A little. But there is a student here who has a much closer relationship with her than I ever could. You met Mr. Wagner—"

"Hang on a second," Rogue cut in, her eyes wide. "Nightcrawler is Kurt _Wagner_?"

The Professor frowned. "Yes. Seeing as you absorbed him, I thought you would have known."

She shook her head. "Ah try tah lock away the thoughts and the memories unless I have to look through them. Ah kinda reduce the psyches to shadows so they don't drive meh completely insane with their chatter. But Kurt. He's Mystique's son!"

"So," the telepath supplied, "In a manner of speaking, that would make him your brother."

To his surprise, Rogue scowled.

"She ain't much of a mother to meh—she handed me over to Magneto against my will two years back, and never acted like a mother should—she betrayed me, served me up on a silver platter into a life of terrorism. Irene was better, but even she stopped callin' eventually…" She trailed off and swallowed hard. "So ah haven't really got enough of a mother-daughter relationship with her tah count as his sister."

"I think," Xavier said gently, "That he feels just as betrayed by her as you do. She abandoned him at birth, you see, and though she later sought him out to tell him of their relationship, she never gave him a satisfactory explanation for his abandonment. Although I highly doubt that it is true, Kurt's insecurities have lead him to think that she shunned him because of his demonic appearance."

Rogue fell silent, and he continued, "Kurt would love to have a sister, but I am sure that whether or not you choose to pursue that relationship, you will become good friends."

"Maybe. He's a nice kid…" Rogue allowed. Then she grinned. "Her son… ah can't believe ah didn't figure it out sooner. I heard Mystique and Magneto talkin' 'bout him once or twice, but ah never made the connection even though it should have been easy…. Ah mean, they're both blue."

The Professor chuckled. "Yes, they are, aren't they? Then again, so is doctor McCoy…"

The both sobered up after that, and the small smile that had graced Rogue's face disappeared.

"So, lahke ah said, Mystique handed meh over to Magneto when ah was fifteen—John and Peter arrived a little later. Mystique trained meh a little when ah was with her—combat techniques, mostly. Magneto was the one who had meh makin' headway with mah powers, though ah still can't touch anyone, and ah have tah draw up the whole psyche to use other people's powers. A couple 'o weeks after ah joined the team, he brought a telepath in—she was probably a little older than meh, about two or three years, and it was pretty obvious that she hadn't come willingly. Magneto had her put in the psychic device that stops meh from escapin'—but ah guess yah disabled his end of that, 'cause ah'm still conscious."

The Professor nodded. Rogue carried on. "Things went pretty normally for the next two years—trainin', the occasional information-gatherin' mission. Absorption comes in handy durin' those, though ah never absorbed enough to create a full psyche. He only had me do that if ah needed to use their powers. Breakin' into the mansion was mah first big mission—and then the sentinel affair, where ah met Remy again."

She laughed, but it was forced. "Ah thought ah was crazy. Ah mean, ah spent ten years thinkin' that ah killed him. And then—well, you know the rest."

"Thank you for telling me, Rogue," the Professor said after a brief moment of silence. "Now, as Kitty mentioned beforehand, you will be sharing a room with her." He stifled as smile as Rogue scrunched her nose in annoyance. "Once you get to know her, I am sure that you will come to see far enough beyond Katherine's....exuberance to realize that she really does mean well."

"Ah'm sure she does, but ah may just die of pink overload," Rogue muttered.

The Professor humored her with a smile. "Well, now that that's settled, I will have Kitty escort you to dinner. But before we do that—would you mind if I could take a look at that psychic device? Just to make sure that we don't have any mishaps."

Rogue hesitated, but then pasted a smile on her face. "Sure."

The Professor brought his wheelchair a little closer and lifted his hands to rest in the air on either side of her head.

"This should not hurt you," he reassured her. She wasn't convinced.

"Shouldn't," she mumbled under her breath, but a prickle rose up her neck and she knew that he had already made his way in.

***

He was standing on a dark plain, almost empty apart from shadows of thought that ghosted through like shadows, appearing and disappearing at a constant rate. He ignored them—it wasn't his job to pry—and walked towards a glowing light in the distance.

There it was—a huge wall, translucent blue and glowing faintly purple from a violet thread that ran through it. His heart wrenched, but he put aside his theories until he was able to touch the semisolid boundary.

Light flashed around his fingers in the shape of a butterfly, and he sighed. This was Betsy Braddock's work, and no mistake about it. The nature and cause of her two-week kidnapping was suddenly extremely obvious. Less obvious was why she had chosen to the fact that she had come into contact with Rogue a secret.

Charles shook his head and turned his mind back to the matter at hand. He touched his fingers to the wall again and kept it there, feeling out the nature of the telepathic device. It was imbued in the wall itself, created in such a way that if Rogue tried to escape, energy would be drawn from her psyches to shut down her mental functions and render her unconscious.

The problem with the arrangement was that psychic walls should be selectively permeable, allowing the user to reach beyond it without fear of breaking it. Instead, the inexperienced telepath had woven the initial wall with the telepathic instructions that kept Rogue with Magneto in a chunky and nearly solid manner. He expected that Rogue found it difficult to even maintain such a large yet weak wall, let alone draw psyches through it.

Then he found the crack. He pursed his lips and fought the desire to shake his head. What had Betsy been thinking? Even a seventeen year old telepath should have known better than to leave a crack for Rogue to draw her psyches through. With a sigh, he stepped forward and sank his hands into the blue solid, and grasped the purple thread. He pulled, and it snapped through the wall and collected into his hands, where a simple clenching of his fingers obliterated the device that had blocked Rogue from her freedom. The crack in the wall was fixed with a wave of his hand, and he stepped back to admire his work.

The wall was fully blue now, thin and more jelly-like than before, but a hundred times stronger in the telepathic sense. It saddened him that it had been in such a poor state; without such hindrances Rogue could well have been able to control her powers by now.

With that he retreated back into his own mind and opened his eyes. Rogue stared back at him.

"That has been taken care of," the Professor assured her, "And I have taken the liberty of strengthening your mental block. Please do not attempt to draw any psyches until we have had a chance to have another session. You must use a slightly different method now."

She nodded. "Thank yah, sir."

Xavier smiled. "It's a pleasure, Rogue. Now, Kitty should be here any—"

"Hi!" the girl said cheerfully, phasing through the door. "C'mon, dinner's ready, and if we don't get there soon Kurt will eat _everything_."

Rogue glanced uncertainly at the older man, who smiled.

"I will see you tomorrow, Rogue," he promised. "We will sort out minor details such as schooling then."

She got to her feet reluctantly and winced when Kitty grabbed her covered arm.

"Hold your breath!" the petite girl commanded, and Rogue barely had time to obey when the phaser turned intangible and they both sank through the floor.

***

Far away from the Xavier Institute, Piotr Rasputin sat against a solid metal wall, gauze taped awkwardly around his head and his left bicep. Various other scabs and bruises peppered his skin, and his hands held a half-burnt photograph. He squinted at it in the half-light and brushed a piece of soot away from the young girl's face. At least it hadn't all burnt—not that _she_ would have cared.

As much as he wanted to believe that Rogue hadn't meant to bring the place crashing down around their ears, he couldn't do it. She had been terrified of Magneto, and probably angry too, and so she released her powers without even warning him and John.

She should have known that they could have been killed. She _must _have known, and she'd done it anyway.

Even so, he might still have given her the benefit of the doubt, except for one thing:

She hadn't even said goodbye.

She'd left him and John draped unconscious over piles of rubble. Over, not under. She had dragged them out of the burning building and didn't even bother to give them a passing 'so long.'

It was that little fact that made him feel betrayed. So, he sat in his new room, rubbing the half burnt photograph, and all the while wondering why.

_I'm so incredibly sorry that this has taken so long. It's been a really tough time for me, between work experience, a summer writing course (which was awesome but time-consuming), helping with a summer kids camp and losing two of our beloved dogs. _

_I can't make any promises over when the next chapter will be up. Thanks for all your support thus far._

_allyg1990_


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